Aegri Somnia
by anthrop
Summary: Those whom a god wishes to destroy he first drives mad.
1. Hungry

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter One

Warnings: (taken from the adultfanfiction website) Abuse, Anal, Angst, AU/AR, B-Mod, Death, H/C, Language, M/M, MC, N/C, Oral, S&M, Slave, Tent, Tort, Violence

Full summary: Time inevitably passes, but the chains of slavery have grown stronger for the wear. Johnny C. is broken, lost to the System's control, and in a fit of desperation turns to Todd Casil, better known as Squee, for the comfort of something familiar, and most of all, safe. But there are dire consequences at the end of a hapless search for the unattainable, and Johnny's hands know only how to destroy.

Pairings: PepSquee, NnySquee, NnyWall (active); NnyEdgar, NnyDevi, NnyJimmy (passive, may not have been sexual, may not have ever even existed)

Note: Well here we have…something. Whatever the hell it is, it's a challenge to myself. A lot of what takes places in the following chapters isn't something I'd normally write. Much of it are things I do not advocate. Please, if you are disturbed by the pairings, don't hit the back button. Just give Aegri Somnia a chance. It's not about the hot sex, trust me. There's nothing here I'd call hot. And if you are here looking for steamy triple x Nny on Squee action, get the fuck away from me.

Story idea originated from a doodle done on some summer school homework from '07. Yeah, I don't get it either. Just move on and read the damn thing.

* * *

_Mortals, remain contented at the _Quia

_For if ye had been able to see all,_

_No need there were for Mary to give birth;_

_And ye have seen desiring without fruit,_

_Those whose desire would have been quieted,_

_Which evermore is given them for a grief._

Dante Alighieri, Purgatory, The Divine Comedy (canto III)

_Quia_: the absolute truth.

* * *

_It was a mistake to come back._

Johnny's face set itself into a broken scowl. The yellowed hardcover clutched in one corpselike hand snapped shut on the crooked words, breaking the dusty silence with a bang. A reaction. Skittering in the walls. Tired groans spilling across the ancient structure's vast expanses, gentle vibrations up and down the floorboards. Responding to his disobedience, his hate. Little poisonous tendrils crawling up and up, seeking to twist and blur the last few lines keeping whatever vestiges of humanity left inside of him intact. No no, it's fine, just a truck with a big load out on the highway. Very simple, nothing dangerous about that. Don't jump to conclusions; don't assume things are worse than they already are. Take a breath, relax, let's go for a walk Nny it'll clear your head let's get something to eat it'd do you some good come on Nny come on Nny let's come on let's let's Nny come on—

The journal hit the television screen, obliterating all quiet. Threw it as hard as he could just to shut the creepy little fucker up. Trying to convince him to go out when he was the way he was—in his _own_ voice? How dare he. So Johnny threw it to rattle things up. Gray tinted glass imploded, slicing through all the things that made TVs function like TVs. The aged and molded set buckled on spindly legs, and toppled over. Its bunny ears popped free, rolling away into the darkness.

Crash.

He stared for a while, trying to make sense of it, of what had just happened in such a small amount of time. Trying to make sense of whatever there was to possibly make sense of. Trying to see if there was anything the least bit useful to take away from destroying his last means of communication with the outside world.

What a lot of useless noise.

That's all he got out of what had the potential to have been an extraordinarily symbolic event. He wasn't feeling particularly introspective today. Not in the mood to try. Didn't really give a shit. Didn't want to. Didn't. Wouldn't. Couldn't. Didn't even know anymore.

Stood and stretched stiff joints and atrophied muscles. Ow. Kind of hurt but he was used to this sort of thing. Just another one of those setbacks to being a feeling creature. He grimaced as he half-walked, half-limped into the kitchen, and not just because of the pain. He was used to it, after all. No, he was caught up in the bittersweetness of it all. Again. Again. _Again._

_vibrations_

All that time trying to purge his mind of all the excess, of all the emotional bullshit piled up to the rafters? All the failures, the lapses in judgment? All the regret? All those _years_? What did it all add up to? What? One giant fucking waste of time, that's what. He was the same as he'd been _before_ he'd killed himself all that time ago.

Rummaged through cabinets for something to eat, absently thinking over the endless drawn-out seconds making up his meager existence. The same? Did he really think he was the _same_? Reached for a rusty can opener—

_Is that really rust Nny?_

--and set to prying the lid off a relatively new can of Skettios. No, he decided after a few minutes. No, he _wasn't_ the same—he was _worse_. Before, before all the years had passed, at least then he hadn't known he was a flusher. Yes, he had been horribly insane—

"_That's the fuck of it you know"_

--a grinning idiot savant who knew only how to kill, but there had been a sort of freedom to it anyway. You could imagine you were the one deciding whose and why you were gouging out someone's intestines with a soup ladle. In reality it had always been an absurdly bold-faced lie, but it had been quaint in its own way. And it had all been easy, so much easier than this hell he'd nailed himself into now. A dry laugh as the dented, sparking microwave tortuously heated lunch, or whatever meal it was time for. He'd boarded up all the windows so well now not even a sliver of the outside could slip in, and that was reassuring, but then again since he'd broken all the clocks it made it difficult to know what time it was. Another monosyllabic chuckle, slipping back into the past. God, he used to be so naïve! How had he ever survived?

Oh wait.

He hadn't.

But he quickly stopped laughing. He didn't like the sound of it reverberating endlessly in so many empty rooms. The way it grated on the ear. Hysterical. Desperate. Gallows' humor couldn't heal the wounds of so many years of slavery to a goddamned _wall_.

The sensitive hairs on the back of his arms rose beneath ragged sleeves, fighting the fabric's weight. Tremors in the many strings of his spinal cord, branching out through infinite neurons, penetrating oft-abused tissues and wrecking havoc. His jaw clenched until thirty-two teeth ached in protest. Nails dug into the swollen wood of the countertop, splinters rupturing the minute spirals of calloused fingerprints, throat so dry he couldn't breathe—

_breathe_

--couldn't get his lungs to expand, his ribs to stretch, the sacs inside to absorb the little oxygen trickling down inside. He could feel it through the worn soles of his boots, running up his legs and sinking into every part of him. Gentle vibrations up and down the floorboards maybe there is something to worry about Nny maybe there is something to worry about maybe there is something Nny maybe there is

The ceramic bowl slipped from nerveless fingers, striking grime crusted—

_Is it only grime might be more than that can you even remember_

--tiles, shattering with an ear-splitting bang. Orange sauce ricocheted everywhere, splattering against his legs and flying in a wide arc. His dazed mind thought wildly that it looked like arterial spray peppered with Cheerios. Shards of bowl spun crazily, vanishing under the lopsided tale, into the dark overhang of the lower cabinets. A large piece struck the claw of one tomato-drenched boot and cracked in two. He stared holes into the floor, sauce-spattered hands tight fists, body frozen and angry.

_Maybe there is something to worry about._

He decided he wasn't hungry anymore.

* * *

Character © JV and all that happy crappy, plot and all the extra stuff that decimates the original character conceptions © anthrop/androgynous napkin. If you see any grammar/spelling mistakes please inform me. Beta'd by Inanimate Obsessor/Incothe.

There will only be small a/n's after this, and only one per chapter. Questions will be answered…somewhere. Probably my dA account in a journal, or something. If there are questions, that is. Updated every Friday.

See you in a week. A.N.


	2. Reflections

Beta: Inanimate Obsessor/Incothe

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Two: Reflections

Out of the kitchen and down a hall to the place technically labeled as bedroom to change his clothes. It wouldn't do to let the Skettios dry all over him like this. He fumbled for the light switch and found it curiously missing. The Wall was playing with him again, like that was anything new. Fine, whatever. Wasn't like he needed the damn lamp anyway.

_And why is that, Nny? Why is it you can see so well in the dark?_

"Shut up." He wasn't sure if this was said aloud or not, and didn't bother figuring it out.

Changed his pants, shirt too since he couldn't remember how long he'd worn it—better safe with a shit load of laundry than sorry and reeking of human fluids—and then limped barefoot to the bathroom to clean his boots. Sure, he had other pairs, but these were particularly comfortable, and it was very rare these days to find comfort in anything.

Through the halls again.

He really ought to clean up a little around here. The wooden slats didn't feel like wood against his striped socks, and he tried his best not to brush against the practically dripping walls. He paused, squinting. What the hell _was_ that anyway? Made sure to walk in the center of the bleak, windowless tunnel, never mind the caked blood smears stretching as far as the eye could penetrate the half-light. Blood he could deal with. It would be laughable—_pathetic more like it_—if he were squeamish after all this time. Hmm. He could stand a change of socks now too.

Ah, fuck it.

The light in the bathroom worked. That was nice of the Wall. Hey, a clean towel too! How unusually considerate. But—no. It was better to leave it alone, to just go with it. Too many questions and the wall might start to fuck with his perceptions again. Lord knows he did enough of that to himself already, and certainly didn't need a helping hand from inter-dimensional plaster beasts. His boots clanked hollowly on the cracked lid of the toilet, followed by the hoarse groans of old pipes. Water hiccuped weakly out of the sink faucet, a thick rusted color. The smell was foul, but it wasn't much worse than the general reek already soaked into every inch of the dilapidated shack, so he hardly felt the need to wrinkle his nose in distaste. He waited impatiently until the water ran as clear as it ever would and then soaked the towel. Began to wipe half-crusted Skettios from leather and steel.

Everything was still.

He realized what was happening, but by then it was already too late.

He went blind.

_why is it so_

_so quiet_

_nny something is_

_waiting its waiting is it waiting I don't understand_

_quiet I_

_nny nny quick it's coming it's going to happen soon_

_no shut up_

_oh god stop_

_run run away run_

_so quiet something must be wrong_

_run away_

_careful nny_ _did you see that_

_why is that_

_listen can you hear it hear it_

_so close its always always so close_

_this static is killing me_

_don't cut yourself on the_

_oh god I_

_why are you doing this to me_

_because it is necessary_

_oh god_

_you know he doesn't hear you_

_no one ever listens_

_run away nny_

_at least not to you_

_shut up and die_

_so very quiet_

_just get this over with_

_is it really_

_or have you gone_

_stop don't say any more_

_gone deaf_

_shut up_

_but I didn't say anything_

_so much blood there's always so much blood I'm so tired of it_

_hush . . ._

"Fuck."

They were done, for the moment, and now he was allowed to take in his surroundings more fully. Broken mirror everywhere and his feet were bleeding from a dozen penetrations. He'd broken it ages ago, to keep the reflections at bay. Too much bitterness inside. Too many close encounters. Too many opportunities that had slipped through his fingers time and again. Far too many what ifs and might have beens and if onlys. It hurt to look for too long, and in recent visits home it had become harder and harder to tear his eyes away. So he had smashed every mirror he could find and dirtied the pieces. (But?) He'd forgotten to clear them away, or perhaps he'd feared to touch them anymore. There was a lot of unpleasantness brimming in every pointed shard.

But it didn't matter much the reason. The wounds on his hands had vanished with hardly a trace, like every other attempt to inflict something permanent upon himself. The pain stayed, however.

It always stayed.

In the medicine cabinet he found antibiotic cream, a box of bandages, and a pair of new socks with the price tag still hanging from the elastic. Obviously a "gift" from the Wall. Don't question. Don't. Just accept it and move on. He stripped off the old pair and began the tedious but necessary task of quelling the needs of his flesh.

Eventually he finished. Hit the light. His feet were cared for, safely hidden inside their protective armor, clean and shiny again. Hurt to walk but then again it always did. Well, it was safe enough now to admit he felt a little better. Maybe he'd try the whole eating thing again. He was a _little_ hungry, and you didn't have to gloat, Meat. But halfway to the kitchen he paused, stricken.

His pants were tight.

* * *

A/N: Hoo boy, scene building, character development, nihilism, hard ons… ah, what glorious fun. There's actual dialogue in the next chapter I swear, accept maybe it's more of a monologue because Johnny is still very lonely, apart from his crazies.

I'd like to thank tasty chez, BarkingPup, and Kailean for reviewing me so positively. And yes Kailean; things will be getting SO much worse. :D

Psst! I'm beta'ing a new story of BarkingPup's you should totally check out once she starts posting it. Her other stuff is awesome. She's on dA too.

Also, forgot to mention this last chapter, but Crow-Sensei (Red Crow on here) faved my two PepSquees and reviewed me quite warmly, despite glaring errors and god-knows what else. I'd just like to say what an ego boost that was, since Crow is one of my favorite writers/artists, period. That fact that she seemed to genuinely enjoy something _I_ wrote made me very happy, and perhaps is also encouraging me to work harder on my writing. So, if you see this, Crow, thank you so much!

See you in a week. A.N.


	3. Goblins

Beta: Inanimate Obsessor/Incothe

Thank you BarkingPup, Red Crow, tasty cheez (who was nice enough to not point out I spelled her name wrong last week :D), Yeyana Valentine, and ShiiLovesHim for paying attention to me.

* * *

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Three: Goblins

He looked down, and his mildly startled expression turned to one of alarm. Bit his lip to keep from screaming. Stop. No. _God_ no. Not now. Please. Tried to will it away, to stop, to make it leave, kill its existence. Mind over matter. Mind over matter. Over _matter._ Long minutes of intense focus, groping for control. He could do this, no problem. Had done it before, when the time called for it. It was simple. Go away. Convince the body otherwise. Please.

He felt them coming again, and knew he was in no position to fight them. He let them come, and fell into the white snow of his insanity.

"_Tear off my genitals if I'm aroused!"_

_gonna do it this time?_

_let the blood come instead of your wasted semen?_

_or are you going to admit your humanity?_

_plenty of whores downtown do anything for the right amount_

_don't say it_

_even get fucked by you_

_what a lovely scream you have_

_it knows you know_

_nny listen for once_

_what you want what you've been longing for_

_it knows what you crave_

_what is necessary_

_what are you going to do?_

_no harm in it_

_don't listen to them get out run somewhere safe somewhere_

_cathartic really_

_let someone intervene let someone help nny _

_oh god please_

_there's nothing wrong with being human_

_isn't there?_

_christ, just masturbate if you're so scared, you pathetic shit_

_go on nny_

_no nny—ggkkarghtzzzzzzzzz--_

_get fucked_

He swore loudly and turned on serrated heels, tumbling back into the half-light. Just needed to get out for a while, that was it. A walk. Yes. Fine, Meat, fine. He'd take a goddamn walk if it would do some good. With a hand on the well-worn knob of the basement door he realized where he was. More violent cursing and he left a hole in the molding plaster with his fist. He cursed the wall out for a few minutes until he felt better. Breathed carefully and got a slightly better handle on his fragmented awareness. Gathered himself, made sure everything was off so he could be sure there would be a hovel to come back to instead of a smoking pile of rubble, and tried to go through the front door again.

The basement door seemed to smile a grim, welcome back.

"**GODDAMNIT!**"

He threw his hands into the air and cursed some more. The skittering in the dripping walls became frantic, little creatures running from his formidable wrath. Rodents and insects and the many other things that enjoyed the suffocating closeness of rotting insulation and the dead things hidden behind plaster and wood, quickly fled into deeper and less hazardous territory. All sound but his fuming faded out. Even the moans of so many deteriorating rooms had fallen ominously still. But the subtle vibrations wracking the floorboards grew stronger. More noticeable; noticeable enough for even Johnny to finally pay attention to. He forcibly calmed down, repressed so many violent tendencies, bit down on the words still bubbling up from his wounded dignity. He glared scathingly at the basement door, panting.

"Fine!" Tried so hard to keep his voice steady, the reins tight on completely justifiable anger. "Fuck the walk! Fuck going outside! I'm coming down so shut up! Make them shut the fuck up and make up your fucking _mind!_" A wild, uncontrollable, unavoidable gesture. "Should I go outside or deal with you, never mind I just painted your fu—your damn hide yesterday? _What do you want?!_" Shrieking and it hurt terribly, a shock to his system greater than anything else had shocked him for longer than he could remember. His voice cracked and fell silent, air whistling out with a sound like rustling leaves on cold cement. The musty air absorbed his screams before a single echo could be heard.

"_Well?_" he snapped hoarsely.

The basement door swung open with a high-pitched laugh.

Johnny choked back an angry retort. Didn't want to piss the Wall off, oh no. Had to play the docile little slave or he'd get nothing done at all. At least if he did as he was told often enough he was allowed some of his creativity back. Got to paint now and then; draw things other than that regrettable stick figure. If he just did what the Wall wanted of him, got it over and done with now instead of letting the problem stew until it was completely out of any kind of control, he'd probably be left alone for a few days, a whole week if luck was on his side—for once.

Yesterday's coat _had_ been particularly thick, after all.

His boots clomped loudly on wandering staircases, rang on ladders, sparked on rusted junk piles. Dampness and darkness, muffled voices hidden away, the soft creaking of oiled restraints, dragging chains. How many goblins were locked up down here, where all the bulbs had broken and been left to gather dust? Better not to think about it, otherwise that funny feeling in his stomach might act up again. Meat had called it guilt once, back when he'd still been just a burger boy figurine. Johnny had thrown him out the last window yet to be boarded up, and that had been the end of that.

The Wall had this annoying habit of moving around when it was well fed. He could always find it, eventually. There were all sorts of symptoms to point the way. When he was going the right direction a tingling sensation would burn down his spine. He would start to shiver, cold slicing in all directions, and that unpleasant feeling in his stomach would rear up, twisting everything inside into a jumble of agonizing knots he couldn't undo. His hands would shake, and his eyes would play terrible tricks on him. Madness would sink its claws in a little deeper, tearing the few useful pathways in his brain into jagged, poisonous labyrinths, and he would find himself lost, often rediscovering the outside world with blood down his chest and a few more tally marks against him.

The things the Wall did to him. It's very presence. It...

It hurt.

However, this time it seemed that whatever the Wall wanted led away from it . . . and towards the tunnel leading to little Squee's house.

He stared. The shrunken, bloodless faces of so many past irritants stared back, ribs exposed beneath rotting fabric and half-mummified flesh, locked fingers reaching in vain towards the lives that had once led, or at the very least a decent burial. Johnny ignored them. They were nothing new. He'd get to them eventually.

"You . . . you want me to visit Squee?" His voice questioning, curiously soft and unbefitting a sociopath of such lethal caliber. A roach crawled out of one gaping mouth and scurried into a deeper darkness down the tunnel.

He took that as a yes.

Maybe . . . maybe having a chat with Squee would help. An innocent distraction, an exchange of words with the boy who'd been his neighbor since time out of mind. He was such a nice boy. Safe. So much like himself sometimes, could relate so well to everything, but happily lacking the homicidal tendencies that made it so difficult to keep friends. If it would help, and—and he hadn't talked to anyone but himself in so long . . .

Tentatively, he joined the dead.

* * *

A more delicate side of Nny is peeking out, but you won't see him for a few weeks so don't get excited. Or maybe you should, because Todd and Pepito are up front next Friday. See, words! Words were spoken! Do I have your attention yet?

Well, I will soon. :D

See you in a week. A.N.


	4. Uncharacteristic

Beta: Inanimate Obsessor/Incothe

Thanks to: tasty cheez (Ack, sorry again!), Inanimate Obsessor, and Yeyana Valentine for paying attention to chapter three.

* * *

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Four: Uncharacteristic

Another movie played its ending credits on the screen, the last for the night. They were alone in Todd Casil's house, his neglectful parents long since dead and buried, not that Todd minded much. Life had improved dramatically once they'd gone, though it had been difficult at first. He had loved them, and they had tolerated him, and that had been something to be grateful for. And there had always been the Diablos a few easy blocks away. There had always been the Antichrist to lean on.

Todd sat up, using Pepito's broad chest as leverage. "Argh, where'd the remote g—ah ha!" He yanked it out from between two couch cushions and turned the TV off. He yawned and stretched his arms, shoulders popping loudly in the quiet left in the wake of bad credit music. He adjusted his glasses and caught sight of the time glowing green from the VCR. "Aw geez, it's almost midnight."

Pepito looked at him with lazy bedroom eyes. "So?"

"So? I have work tomorrow. And so do you, in case it slipped your mind." Todd dodged the other's groping claws with a laugh.

"Oh, it _is_ such hell damning mankind!" Pepito cried dramatically, falling into the cushions with an arm over his face. Todd hit him in the gut hard with a pillow.

"Stop whining and help me clean up. At least your clients don't try to eat you if negotiations go sour."

"You'd be surprised_._"

Pepito rose and the two began clearing away popcorn kernels, soda cans, wrappers to a variety of things, and plenty of take-out cartons which had held food from all over the globe. After a minute, with a mild envy that laced his razored teeth he asked, "How is it you are never bothered by any pests with this mess?" He discovered a half-empty pizza box under the sofa, overlooked from the last movie night, with something burbling merrily inside. "_Buen_, Earthly pests, at any rate."

"Well, there was that treaty with the mutant sewer rats ages ago, and there was the agreement with the radioactive cockroaches before that—oof—they, they didn't really have hands so we just kind of did it telepathically—_that_ was a weird day--...and before that there was a, uh, a pact with the mole people--"

"With all these treaties and whatnot, they agreed to leave you alone?"

"And not—_waaaagh!_"

"Amigo?"

"I'm okay, the dust mites in the carpet just tried to eat my shoelaces again." A pause as he tried to find his train of thought. "And not kill me, torture me, experiment on me, et cetera. That's always nice."

"Yes. But what do they get in return?"

Todd's head peered around the corner of the kitchen doorway, a curious glint in his eyes. "I--"

Pepito dropped the pizza box, the thing inside protesting audibly, and waved his hands hastily. "Never mind; I'd rather not know."

A staccato round of blithe snickering. "Good man."

Pepito walked into the kitchen and punched Todd playfully in the arm. "Your pride is showing, _amigo._ Not a very safe thing to flaunt before the newly inaugurated Lord of the Underworld." He hugged the supple waist close, resting his strong chin into the crook between Todd's neck and left shoulder.

Todd appeared unfazed. "A job which _I_ still think is too big for a youngster like yourself."

"_Youngster?_ What is this blasphemy?"

"_You_ are almost a year younger than _me,_ and you will never be capable of enough charismatic dick-wiggling to change Time's mind--and I _know_ you've tried."

Pepito let go briefly, aghast, and Todd took advantage of the few minutes to attack the dishes, which had begun to pile up, as it was easier to do chores without the Antichrist hanging off your hips.

"My my, Todd Casil. If our lives weren't so inextricably entwined and you were any other mucus faced arrogant mortal, my thinking suggests you would be suffering a rather _warm_ spanking right about now." A hand began stroking Todd's weathered torso; the other took a firm hold on his ass, nails scratching against denim.

"I tremble in fear, oh mighty one. I wonder if I should begin to pray." Todd replied, sarcasm lightly threaded in each syllable. He pushed against the groping hands. "Oh dear; I believe my glasses are fogging up."

"Someone is behaving most out of character tonight," Pepito commented, slipping closer, if that were possible. "It must have been all those gorn movies we watched. Your mind is so easily manipulated by the media."

With age Todd seemed to become more and more unaffected by that which had once traumatized him, and so only smiled, dropping the sponge to press scarred fingers to the other's sharp face. "But not by you."

"Ah, ah," Pepito freed one hand to wave graceful claws in his face before letting it slip back down. "Father's dabbled in _everything_, and I have inherited everything from Him. I am in everything you witness, at least a little."

"But, that doesn't mean I listen."

Thick black claws burrowed through layers of human skin, not quite drawing blood. "You're being rather cheeky tonight as well. Mayhap I'll skip the spanking and get straight to the part where you scream for mercy." He chuckled low in the back of his throat, but the human in his arms neither joined him nor parried him with a witty, cool-eyed comeback. Rather, Pepito felt the hard muscles beneath cotton and scar tissue tauten, all the sleepy, comfortable leisure gone in an instant, and he knew he'd done something very, very wrong.

* * *

My beta won't stop telling me I've warped Todd into myself, and that all the kitchen scenes are taking place in my old kitchen. This disturbs me. STOP IT INCOTHE. Right now.

Oh and gorn is a new genre of movie. Gore + porn gorn. It's fuckin' gross, but I totally see these two watching 'em for the hell of it.

See you in a week. A.N.


	5. Vocal

Beta: The truly glorious Incothe.

Thanks to: tasty cheez, Kailean, Lady Yate-xel, and SkoldGirl for paying attention last chapter.

Note: I apologize if I offended anyone with my gorn reference last chap. It was meant to be a joke. Srsly, lighten up plskthxbai.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Five: Vocal**

* * *

"Todd?" Pepito asked softly.

"You--I was—it just reminded me... No, it's silly. Forget I said anything." Yes forget, but it was going to dwell on Todd's mind long after the embrace was finished and Pepito went home for the night.

"_Diga me._" Tell me.

But he didn't _want_ to tell him. Briefly Todd opened his mouth to deter Pepito, to change the subject, but he closed it again within a few seconds. He couldn't resist Pepito's gentle pleadings, not when he used his most human of voices like that. Actual sincerity was so hard to find these days. He exhaled in a huff, knowing he was being expertly manipulated and not liking it at all, but then again, Pepito often had little control over his powers. It came from being the son of a good Christian, or so the Antichrist said.

Softly, reluctantly, he admitted. "He's back again."

Pepito knew who "he" meant without missing a beat. With a sigh he let the last sensual touches flow out of his fingertips, changing their positions gently, molding their intimacy with experience and skill into a hug between two old friends, the benefits of that friendship locked away for a later, more appropriate time. He stepped into the role of comforter and protector from the bogeyman, as one would slip a foot into a well-worn shoe. Easy, and something little that could always be appreciated. "How long?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," Todd replied in that faraway voice that Pepito loathed. It was the voice Todd always used when they discussed that wretch crawling around in his filthy angst next door. "Not long. A week, at most. He was screaming pretty hard last night." A soft, thoughtful noise. "I... I forgot how lonely he sounds sometimes."

"Fuck him." Pepito was not at all surprised by the venom in his voice. "You don't need the aggravation. Don't spare him a moment's thought. I'm sure he'll slither away within a month or two after that Wall of his has had It's way with him." He sneered. "I wish the System would hurry up and kill him. I'm sick of seeing his work in my files."

"You're too cruel sometimes."

Pepito snorted without humor, a puff of dark smoke escaping his nostrils. "His kind don't deserve mercy. They just suck the good from you until you're completely dry, and still they will always hold out their hands for more. Like a gluttonous _child._"

"The System..." He felt Todd swallow back curiosity, knew the worry lines were marring his pretty face again.

"What about It?" Todd knew a fair amount about the afterlife, more than any other human could brag about, and as much as Pepito was allowed to tell him. Perhaps Johnny knew more, but then again, you could hardly _that_ one human anymore.

"Why _doesn't_ It take him?"

Pepito felt a cool chill pool in the pit of his stomach. Carefully he phrased his response to keep the tremor out of his voice. "The System has It's reasons for keeping him. He must be useful—somehow." There was a subtle tone to his speech that suggested he thought Johnny was the farthest thing from useful around. He twitched slightly as a thought came to him, and he made Todd meet his eyes. "You—you don't actually _pity_ him—do you?"

"Sometimes."

His claws gripped bony shoulders, keeping Todd focused on the conversation rather than allow him to float off on a well-timed evasion ploy. "Are we talking about the same person? Are we talking about the same Johnny who has soaked you in the blood of humans more times than you can count? The same Johnny who used to enjoy leaving road kill on your pillow? The same Johnny who used to scare you so bad that you slept on the roof with a crowbar? The _same_ Johnny--"

"Shut up, I get it!" He pushed away to face the shorter man, lines creasing the scar-ridden face. "Goddamn it, Pepito, I know how crazy that sounds. I--I still can't help myself." He gripped one forearm, nibbling the thumb of the other. "You've never talked to him—I mean really talked. He used to be pretty intelligent, and sometimes he could be the sanest guy I knew--for a while, at least. Lately, I, I know he's been a lot..." A defeated sigh, a brief glance in Pepito's direction. "_crazier_ than you'd ever think possible in one person, but that's the System, isn't it? All this time belonging to It... he's lost a lot of, well... _himself._" Leaned against the counter, folding his arms across his chest, hunching his shoulders. His eyes now seemed tied to the decrepit shack a dull silhouette outside the rain-washed kitchen window, but it was impossible to tell if he saw it now or in some ill memory. "I wish you could tell me more about the System."

Pepito gave a cold scoff, hating the swan dive the night had taken. "_Why?_"

"I—" A pause, as if he'd surprised himself. "I guess I want to help him somehow." He coughed out some kind of embarrassed laugh, more of a rush of pent up air pressed from his lungs and a round of uncomfortable squirming. "Or at least make all that damn screaming stop."

The smile on Pepito's face was tired. "I've told you all I can, _amigo_—indeed, all I know at all." A small but unavoidable lie. "It would be better to leave well enough alone. The System is messy, but It is thorough. It will care for Johnny, if not now, then eventually. You should focus more on yourself. The bags under your eyes are turning a rather unsavory shade of brown."

He stepped in close again, seeing that it was all right to do so, and rubbed the thin, discolored skin with a calloused thumb, then let the hand slip to gently cup the back of Todd's head. Without any discomfort Todd bent his knees and Pepito rose on tiptoe until their foreheads met. He was careful to jut his chin forward just enough to keep his horns a safe distance from human flesh and hair. Hellfire was a true bitch to extinguish once ignited, an oft-repeated lesson for the both of them. He lowered his jaw to place a safe kiss, a tiny nibble, against Todd's lips, and smiled closemouthed as he did. "I have always approved of the periwinkle, you know."

Todd laughed through his nose. "Why?"

"It is proof that things could have gone far worse in my absence. When otherwise we would be together, you know--" he paused to let Todd finish, grinning.

"'Laughing at the whole wide human comedy perpetuating itself down through the generations.' Yeah, I know." Todd returned the smile, but it did nothing to comfort the other. Pepito knew those lips entirely too well; he knew the difference between a genuine smile and the struggle to find one. Perhaps it was best to move on.

"Are you going to be up all night worrying about things beyond your control?" he asked, as if speaking to a beloved child. Though Todd was older, more often than not it seemed their roles were meant to be reversed.

"Of course not," Todd said with a roll of his eyes. "But I won't be getting any sleep anyway, if you don't let go of me."

Pepito allowed a warm chuckle. "I give, I give," he said, letting go. And with slightly more authority, "Very well, it is late, and we both have our hands brimming with responsibilities with the coming of the sun. It is high time I left you to seek what comfort you can find between your bed sheets."

"If I could get out of going to the Embassy tomorrow I'm sure I could find all _kinds_ of comfort between my sheets." Todd's grin was true this time as he pressed close, slipping a seductive hand under Pepito's shirt as he ground their hips together. A surprised but rather pleased grunt escaped Pepito as he was pushed roughly against the quietly humming refrigerator. He felt himself grow hard in seconds and he would have laughed at this sudden and rare assertiveness if his mouth hadn't been busy. Yet, just as things began to look promising, Todd pulled away, flicking Pepito's upturned nose . "But I can't."

"You're cruel," Pepito said feebly from his "take-me-now-or-I'll-take-you-_bitch_" position against the plastic cooling appliance.

"I learned from the best." Todd smoothed his shirt and drifted out to the living room to collect what was left of their disorderly fun. Pepito followed, his tongue savoring the other's unique taste.

* * *

Ngh, touching. Don't like it, doesn't feel right. Nor half the dialogue. Ah well, I'm expanding my writing abilities, yes? Incothe seemed to find it all very erotic, telling me I sound like a "seasoned pro." This disturbs me, but whatev.

Oh, I _think_ I quoted _The Great Gatsby_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald up there, though I can't remember precisely. If you recognize the quote please tell me if I'm correct or not. Criticism welcome with open arms, also. Please, please dear god say something if you notice a glaring error.

See you in a week. A.N.


	6. Liar

Beta: Incothe

Thanks go out to: ZazuAndHyenaFan, BarkingPup, tasty cheez, and Mrs. Terwilliger

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Six: Liar**

* * *

"Shall I lend a last hand before departing?" Pepito asked.

Todd thought about it briefly. "Mmm, no. Probably smarter if you leave before I lose the last of my restraints," he decided nonchalantly, waving the other off as he hopped deftly over the couch.

A moment passed, Pepito standing idly out of the way, Todd a whirlwind of activity. There was a pleased cry as Todd discovered the gurgling pizza box discarded earlier by his comrade. "Threkmalthgrimblaughee, I've been looking all over for you!" he asked, peering inside. The box quivered in his hands as a dripping green tentacle disgorged itself from the rest of the blob and tried to strangle him. He slapped it away, wiping muck from his face with an absent nonchalance, then clicked his teeth and glanced at Pepito.

"That's the thing about pets from other solar systems; not only are they stupid, they're just _so_ damn stubborn." He gestured at the box. "This little guy can only live in subzero temperatures, so I keep him in my freezer, right? But he keeps insisting he can handle a little heat and now look at him." Slapped away the tentacle again. "He's a pile of radioactive tar. It's going to take ages to fix the idiot." Despite the harshness of his words he eyed the alien creature fondly.

The box snarled, trembling in Todd's hands.

"Why does he keep doing that?" Pepito asked, bemused.

"Do what? Oh, the strangling?" He slapped the tentacle away a third time, and it cooed ecstatically. "It's a sign of affection."

"Ah." This hardly surprised Pepito. "Well, if you're sure, I'll be on my way." He took a step towards the front door, keeping his torso and head facing the living room.

Todd leaned back on his heels, closing the pizza box to keep the thing quiet. "Okay, what's wrong?" he asked impatiently.

"Nothing. Why?"

"_That_ is a lie and you and I both know it." Todd stared at him hard. "You're _never_ clingy, Pepito."

"Sure I am."

"Liar, liar, pants on fire."

"I am not!"

Todd rubbed his scalp with one hand, the scraping of skin against stubbly hair loud between them. "This is creeping me out. Just fess up."

"Ah, Todd, _lo siento._" No point in lying when he wasn't up for it. "I don't wish to upset you." He fiddled with a spare lock of hair that had slipped into his face. "My mind has been on other things tonight. _Things_... are not going as I have hoped."

"The war, right?"

"Hmm—oh. Yes, yes." He took hold of the subject eagerly. "Half my minions are blathering idiots, and all the rest won't stop talking of mutiny. They say we're doomed to lose in the end, so why bother putting up a good fight?"

"Pussies."

"That's what I said."

"Put the fear back in 'em, did you?"

"Of course."

"So what's the problem?"

He couldn't come out and say everything. Honesty was not, _could_ not be the Antichrist's strong point. "I don't plan on spending eternity shackled away in some fiery pit with only Father for company," he said finally.

Todd stood, keeping the lid of the pizza box tightly shut with his thumbs. "How is he anyway?"

"Oh, you know how he is. Cynical and depressing as always."

"How's Florida treating him?"

"Fair enough, though it seems to be more to Mother's liking. All the sun seems to be doing her wonders."

The human stifled a yawn. "Shit, we're off topic."

"Just trying to prolong the goodbye, I'm sure."

Todd resisted a brief snort. "Like it needs to be any longer. Jesus, you're acting like this is the last time we'll ever see each other again."

Pepito shrugged offhandedly. "The coming of every dawn brings with it an uncountable plethora of surprises. One may never know what will happen." He bit his lip sharply, drawing four indents of blood, fearing he had said too much. But Todd was momentarily distracted by Threkmalthgrimblaughee as it successfully escaped its box and got several of its limbs around his face. By the time he'd freed himself and cleared the muck off, Pepito had composed himself, no trace of breakdown visible.

"Ugh, _gross._ Well, I promise to be extra careful, Mr. Paranoid."

"_Si. Pues,_ I guess I'll get going."

"Thank God. I don't know how much more of your damn Spanglish I can take." Now the sarcasm was back and everything appeared alright again.

"I'm insulted."

Todd waved at him. "You know I love you. Now get out of my house before I call Patricia on you."

"I'm trembling with fear."

"You should be, since _you_ gave her to me. Goddamn emu nearly took out the neighborhood last week."

"Ah, good thing you had that pocket dimension handy, _¿verdad?_"

"_Suerte pura, conjeturo._" Todd's accent was perhaps better than Pepito's, something that had always given the demon much grief.

"Then you are the luckiest human I've ever come across. To still live after all that you've experienced! _¡Es prácticamente mágico!_"

"Argh, the Spanglish! It rends my ears unmercifully!" Todd cried dramatically, grabbing at his ears. "Oh, oh the pain. The unimaginable, _searing_ pain." He collapsed with a great flourish of his limbs onto the couch, grinning like an idiot.

"_¡Ay!_" More dramatic flourishes. It was an old joke, improvised into novelty with every return, one that promised safety. "I am utterly humbled beneath your incendiary wit, _amigo._"

They laughed.

"All right, all right," Pepito gasped, pushing himself off a nearby wall against which he had collapsed. "Now I am truly off, Todd. I'll call you if time permits, tomorrow."

A happy wheeze, clutching a stitch in his side. "Uh-huh. Later."

"Yes." A truly devilish grin. "_¡Adiós, mi amor!_"

He vanished through the door before the remote control could become better acquainted with his face, much to Todd's disappointment. He lay there a moment longer, letting his brain linger over the finer moments of the day. Oh yes. It had been a very good span of consciousness. Something worth filing away into his updated memory chip. A tiny click, and it was saved. Now, it was time to wrap up the last bit of cleaning, including a quick shower to get the tar out of his hair before it went through some kind of chemical reaction and melted his eyes out of his head, or whatever things like Threkmalthgrimblaughee did to human organics, and it was off to bed for the first time in several days. Surveyed the kitchen after throwing the beast into the freezer, moldy pizza and all. Mmm, he'd put the trash out tomorrow when he left for work, but the dishes were something he couldn't put off, so he headed for the sink again. Mmm, he'd put the trash out tomorrow when he left for work, but the dishes were something he couldn't put off, so he headed for the sink again.

Minutes passed.

The softest creak of floorboards was his only warning.

"Squee?"

* * *

Some minor Biblical references, but you don't need to really know them since they're so vague and not relevant to the fic. Also, most of the Spanish I used up there is either similar enough to its English translation, pseudo-explained through following dialogue, or not really important. If you really care then Babel Fish it.

Yeah, I don't understand Threkmalthgrimblaughee either. Just know that if any of y'all want to draw something for this monster, DRAW HIM/HER/IT/WHATEVER WITH TODD. I swear, if I knew how to wield Copics, this little guy'd be all over dA in a heartbeat. I think this is me just trying to make Todd's life as fucking weird as possible.

Oh, Johnny's back. AAAAAAAANGST.

I suck at dialogue. SO MUCH.

See you in a week. A.N.


	7. Subatomic

**Beta**: Incothe

**Thanks to:** tasty cheez, Lady-Yatexel, BarkingPup, and smilefortyeight for paying attention this past week. :D

**A note:** I was asked how many chapters AS is going to be. Currently I"m working on chapter nineteen currently, in which the eighth (and hopefully last) character I'm using is introduced. From the feel of what's left in my head, I expect this to be no more than twenty-five chapters, and that's if I stretch it. And afterwards I'll be posting all of AS as the epic one-shot it was originally planned to be, but maybe only on ff because of the sheer ginormousness of it.

Srsly, it's waaaay big.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Seven: Subatomic**

Todd gasped, dropping theplate in his hands into the soapy water. A muted clunk reached his ears as it collided with other dishes hiding beneath the oily scum, shifting everything madly, and there was a dull crack that suggested the death of something ceramic. Many years of drilled-in experience were the only thing thatkept him from screaming. That voice, oh god, _that_ _voice. _Didn't dare turn around until he'd gotten control of his face. Still, he couldn't help the blood pounding in his ears as he swiveled to witness the late-night visitor that always managed to instill absolute fear without even being remotely aware of it.

An embarrassed smile plastered itself lamely across Todd's face, but he kept his hands soaking in the sink, fingers slowly groping for something sharp, a piece of broken plate, a goddamned butter knife, _anything._ Just in case. He wouldn't stand a chance against Johnny if it came down to a real fight—time and again he had seen what his neighbor was capable of and the mere memories were enough to send sweat pouring down his sides and bile churning in his stomach. But then again, if it came down to a fight, he would have surprise on his side.

After all, Johnny trusted him to a fault.

"Nny!" Todd cried, bending the smile into something less plastic by sheer force of will. "Jesus, you surprised me." A soft, reassuring laugh. An I'm-not-afraid-at-all-and-I'm-happy-to-see-you champagne laugh. Inside, however, he was screaming. He could feel it slinking up his throat and forced it down again, but he wasn't sure how long he could play this one out. Wasn't sure at all.

"I-I didn't hear the door. Did you use a window?" He hoped it didn't sound as accusing to Johnny's ears as it did to his own.

Softly, hesitantly, and with more than a trace of some kind of fear of his own, "The tunnel."

With a knowing smile he dragged one hand out of the rapidly cooling water to rest it wetly against his hip. "Ah, of course. Smart of you. It's raining pretty hard outside."

"Is it?" Johnny was surprised, casting his sunken eyes towards the kitchen window Todd himself had gazed out no more than twenty minutes before. This was probably his first sight of the outside world in days. "... Oh." Another pause. "It's loud."

"Does it bother you?"

"No. But... It hides the stars."

He kept his face smooth. "Yeah. But it's pretty nice, otherwise. Cleans the air and the ground. Cleans out everything." Bit his tongue. _Shit._

A cold stare burned into Todd from across the kitchen. "Not all of it."

"N-no, I guess you're right." It was obvious what Johnny alluded too, even if Johnny himself might not have known. The basement. No amount of broiling runoff could ever purge the death from that hellhole, and it was time to switch subjects again, if only slightly. "You, ah, you haven't come by in ages. Where've you been this time?"

"... Around." It was likely the details of his last excursion were already fading from Johnny's conscious memory. Within a few days Todd knew all but the vaguest colors, perhaps a few strong sensations, would be left of several months of existence. He also knew that somewhere in the upper levels of 777 lay an old journal with as much of these latest travels written inside as was remembered at the time of writing, ugly lettering gouging their home deep into the paper.

"It's been pretty noisy over at your place. You usually drop by the first night you get back but... you..." Turned the faucet off, and the silence rushed in, a vacuum of awkward fear. "Maybe I was hearing some dumb teens or something. You just get home?"

"No. I came back..." Johnny trailed off, and the near fleshless forehead creased because already that little detail had drowned in the vast ocean of sewage masquerading as his mind.

"Oh." As he turned to fully face the other, he decided he couldn't control his eyes anymore without the strain showing. A sad smile as he angled his head in a slight upward diagonal. His glasses flashed white in the hard fluorescents, hiding the horror flooding in his eyes from he who horrified. "So, how was your trip? Any luck with your projects?"

"Of course not." Hate burning in Johnny's thorny voice. "It won't let me. It likes... likes to see me struggle."

Todd felt a muscle in his neck clench involuntarily as a wave of tangled emotions twisted in disjointed swells, hidden in the air's subatomic makeup. Electricity crackled invisibly, and the small hairs on the back of his neck rose, goose bumps hardening almost painfully on his limbs. If he really wanted to see the chains stitched into Johnny's every cell, see the wires and locks trailing down to the floor, out across the living room and down the basement stairs, through the tunnel connecting 779 and 777, all the way to the Wall, all it would take was the removal of his glasses and a few seconds of focus. But, he didn't want to see. It hurt to see. Quickly, again it was time to change the subject, to pacify the Wall a little longer.

"Well I wish you'd dropped by a little earlier. I was watching old movies with Pepito. Um—" Put off by the blank expression staring back at him. "You've met him a couple times." Nothing. "He might've called himself Pepe? Joseph? ...The Alter Boy of Doom?"

"Horns."

"Er-"

"He has... horns."

"Oh. Yeah. He does." Relief briefly trickled through Todd, grateful it wasn't necessary to explain how he'd ended up with the Antichrist as both his best friend and lover. Again. It had been awkward the first half dozen times, and after that it had just gotten kind of sad. "We, uh, were just hanging out. Another person would have made it more fun."

That was a bit of a blurred lie. Sure, it would have been fun having a few more people to have heated arguments over various movie plots—or lack thereof—but not Johnny. It was difficult to have _any_ symptom of fun with a fatalistic mass murderer going on and on about his wretched life and threatening suicide while twitching at your elbow. "So, when's the last time you had anything substantial to eat?"

"I tried... about an hour ago, I think."

"Did it work?"

"... Not really."

"You hungry?"

"A little."

Which, in Johnny-speak, meant he probably hadn't eaten in a week.

"Let's fix that, shall we?" A convincing smile, and Johnny tried to return it the best he could.

But for Todd, it was starting to hurt, keeping these pleasantries in place, masking his fear, tying down his almost uncontrollable urge to punch Johnny as hard as he could and then run like a madman—no pun intended. But, he couldn't do that. He simply couldn't. So he removed his hands from the now icy swill, dried them on a spare dishtowel, and walked to the fridge. "How about I warm up some pizza, okay Nny?"

"I..." He seemed incapable of responding to this kindness.

"Sit down, at the table, Nny. Relax a minute. You know nothing's gonna hurt you here."

* * *

It's tense and it's awkward and Nny is pitiful and Todd is some lonely housewife (all my beta's words) and oh my Jesus when I post this in segments the plot does not EXIST. alhgalshglshglaghsdlghs.

Cough.

See you in a week. A.N.

* * *


	8. Question

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to: **Kailean, ZazuAndHyenaFan, ShovelDuct, Lady Yatexel, smilefortyeight, ReoccuringComatose, BarkingPup, and Red Crow

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Eight: Question**

* * *

Johnny complied, unable to reply in any way but for wide-eyed amazement. It was quiet between them, a pseudo-comfortable atmosphere built on the experience gained by countless late-night encounters, interactions, and gradual conversations, the kind that had two people talking instead of one sided preaching while the other stared, mute and dripping with gore the first had accidentally splashed all over him. Each knew the other almost as well as they knew themselves—perhaps better, in Johnny's case—and words were hardly necessary. Todd was glad for any excuse not to meet him face to face. An occasional glance over his shoulder was more than enough to tell him how slavery was treating his neighbor.

Once upon a time Johnny had been just a few inches shy of six feet. Now his spine was slowly collapsing in on itself from the weight of his guilt—whether he was aware of that guilt or not was up for debate but it was there all the same. A virtually nonexistent diet had eaten away at every last bit of softness to his frame, and Todd doubted the victims of the Nazi concentration camps had ever been as fleshless. Always a night owl, now half a year could pass without the smallest ray of sunlight gracing Johnny, and he was a creature of habit. These binges of darkness had faded the soft brown from his skin, rendering it a waxy yellow-gray. Insomnia couldn't begin to cover the periods between unwilling catnaps, and the skin around his eyes had suffered for it. Black and dead, with deep cracks splintering the candle wax of the rest of his face. His blue hair, something Todd had never summed up enough courage to ask about, had always been a tangled mess, but as the System took greater and greater control, forcing Johnny to focus on nothing but the Wall and all the madness seeping through the wrinkles of his brain, all hygienic common sense had fled him. Blue had become a matted, greasy, parasitic nest, black with untold filth. Sores were prevalent on nearly every inch of visible skin—Todd could only assume it was worse beneath the rags he wore. White and red- green pus leaked out steadily, crusted here and there in strange smears and mazes to be drenched anew at a later date. Teeth that had once been paid attention to for practical reasons, if nothing else had been allowed to rot, and though every tooth seemed accounted for, it certainly wouldn't be long until they began to crack and fall out. Fingernails were blackened, gore from untold victims collected thickly underneath. The whites of his eyes were a foul, diseased yellow, ruptured blood vessels stretched naked tree branches, encircling and piercing black irises, and who knew what madness lay there?

Todd refused to look. The System was working on Johnny slowly, but with a slow, crushing patience. These were inevitable results, transmogrifying him from a man into something else entirely. The effects on every other part of him was enough to convince Todd it was safer to _never _pay close attention to what had once been a pair of human eyes.

"Squee?" Flinched, sympathizing with the tortured throat. Wondered if it bled when Johnny screamed.

Slightly louder, but still hardly above a choked murmur. "Squee?"

"Y-yeah?"

"I think the pizza's burning."

A welcome relief from thoughts heavily influenced by good old Shmee. Quiet though the voice remained, the thought patterns were drilled in and Todd could think for Shmee now without the bear having to make the effort. He hurried to salvage what could very well be the first thing to pass through Johnny's cracked, sore-ridden lips in days.

"I've only got Coke. Is that okay to drink?"

Johnny nodded and raised scarred eyebrows, silently asking if he might be allowed to eat. He was so accustomed to never doing anything for himself that even the idea of touching the plate before him, without a hand to order him, seemed to paralyze. Todd was never sure how the other viewed the ways of the world, but it seemed in Johnny's eyes that he, Todd, would always be the bigger man.

He poured two glasses of soda, and the air was so still he could hear the carbonation exploding to the surface, barely noticeable spits of liquid leaping over the edge and splashing against the backs of his hands. Sat down across from Johnny, the glasses knocking against the old wood. "Go on, Nny. Eat."

As if Todd had pressed a button, Johnny complied, mechanically chewing and swallowing, a pause to stare at his drink until the ok was given, a gasp as the liquid seared it way down his ravaged throat, rinse and repeat.

All systems go.

Todd picked at his food, wondered how long the other planned on staying. He had a lot to do tomorrow, and the less sleep he got the more dangerous his job became. It was already close to one, and he'd been awake for some time now. Stared into his glass so he wouldn't have to look across the table. If any muscle slipped and expressed his fear, and Johnny saw with those eyes... Well, Johnny's feats of overreaction were infamous, and regret—if there was every any at all—often came too late to be worth much to those who suffered the brunt of his wrath.

Unfortunately, the risk had to be taken if the night was going to ever end.

He opened his mouth, the careful words already formed in his head, but Johnny beat him to the punch.

"What's it like?" the older man blurted, then ducked his gaunt face to his collapsed chest, claw-like fingers clutching his glass in a vice grip. Todd was confused, both by the vagueness of the sudden question and Johnny's own reaction to it. A quick second passed before his mind unraveled the scene, and remembered many a time when he had curled up like that, holding Shmee close to keep the fear away. Johnny was _afraid_, afraid he'd gone too far and now expected the consequences for his insubordination.

"What's... what like?" Todd asked after taking a sip from his drink and setting it down without a noise.

"Being... free?" Whispered into his chest, and Todd just barely heard. "What's... What's it like?"

"I—" Todd didn't know how to answer. He'd never been asked a question like that, ever. He had never realized the significance of that one difference between them. With the kind of jolt that came with a world-stopping revelation, he suddenly realized that freedom was the only thing keeping him from being bound to the same fate as Johnny. Without freedom, or in other words, if he had also been chosen to be a flusher, it was all too easy to imagine taking Johnny's place, and the vision left him cold.

Thunderstruck, he leaned back in his chair, mouth working uselessly. How had he ever managed to take his freedom for granted when the alternative lived fifty feet away, was staring him in the face this very moment, waiting on eggshells for an answer?

Oh crap.

* * *

To see the Q&A for chapter seven, along with an opportunity(?) to help me out with a glaring problem you probably saw up there, check out my dA journal here: http: (space) /anthrop (dot) deviantart (dot) com/journal/18345111/. Remove the spaces and dots to get there.

I didn't swear in this chapter. Hoorah.

See you in a week. A.N.


	9. Perceptions

**Beta: **Incothe

**Thanks to: **ZazuAndHyenaFan, ShovelDuct, Kailean, smilefortyeight, Lady Yatexel, and Rainbow-Man

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Nine: Perceptions**

An answer was spilling out of Todd even as his brain still rode the shock waves. His ears momentarily deafened by the pounding of his heart, he could only feel out the words in the vibrations rumbling in his voice box. Something about how freedom is relative to how you live your life, and unless you do something worthwhile freedom isn't much, and sometimes a life in chains can be more fulfilling than it seems sometimes, can be better than a free life, because at least then you know your purpose, you have a set direction to travel without a fear of the unknown.

In other words, complete bullshit. And they both knew it.

Eventually his voice dwindled off and the silence returned, reinforced with embarrassment, shame, and an awkwardness that hadn't been there before, leaving a deep ache in Todd's gut, his ribs clenching hard around his lungs and heart. He distracted himself by playing with the condensation rings on the table, dragging cold droplets up and down the grain. Finally he couldn't take it anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said, knowing no amount of apologizing could make up for the pain of enduring.

"No, don't." Johnny sounded exhausted, and Todd wished the man would submit to his body's needs more often. The less Johnny succumbed to sleep—even with its nightmares—the tighter the System's grip upon him seemed to become. He didn't know if that was true or not; it just appeared to be so. Todd remembered Pepito's hesitant explanation of the afterlife, and how the System had once freed Johnny upon judging him too unstable to fulfill the proper niche of the ordinary flusher. But something had happened, Pepito hadn't known or hadn't been able to tell him, and now Johnny was back in the proverbial chains, and the System was constructing It's flushers to fit the same mold.

Their eyes met briefly. "No, don't. Please don't apologize," Johnny begged. "It's a difficult question from any angle. I... shouldn't have asked you so bluntly. I shouldn't have asked you at all." He stood, the chair screaming against the tile, moving quicker than should have been possible for someone in his state though Johnny seemed to make it a point to never agree with anything, even the basic laws of human anatomy. Todd looked up into the cracking face and wished he'd hung onto the knife. "I should go," the older man said, supporting himself with his hands on the table. He seemed afraid to meet Todd's eyes again.

"Are you—"

"This was a bad idea."

"I don't understand, Nny. Do you—what's wrong?"

"I shouldn't have come here." He backed away, towards the living room. "I shouldn't have... Why did I listen to... No, I didn't mean that ... Why would—_No_. Fuck, I said--! ...Please, I just want to go... stop, leave me alone—_nngh!_"

Todd stood and carefully walked towards him, hands held out half in defense, half hoping to still the growing panic in Johnny. "Okay—okay Nny. You can go home if you want. You don't have to stay. No one's making you do anything."

Johnny merely whimpered, his back thudding against the wall as he hugged his chest with withered arms. The creaks and groans of his body broke against Todd's ears.

"I just..." His eyes opened and Todd was finally caught in their inhuman beams, and he _saw_ with Johnny's eyes. How, he hadn't a clue. His glasses were constructed to focus only on the reality a normal human saw, deflecting what Todd's eyes were capable of thanks to a Meekrob experiment gone horribly awry in his youth. They were also designed to keep invading realities at bay. This breech shouldn't have been possible, but it happened anyway, and now he was caught.

An involuntary shudder, his jaw going slack with surprise. It lasted mere seconds, but it hurt. It _hurt._ He couldn't make a sound, barely felt connected to his own body. He could see why Johnny envied everything about him, why he always showed up at odd hours of the night whenever he found himself in town. Todd could _see._ It hurt more than anything else ever had, to see things in this perspective and he wrenched himself out before permanent damage could be inflicted, and he fell back into his own eyes.

Johnny hadn't noticed a thing.

"It's cold," said Johnny, his sunken eyes closed again. "And it's never enough. No matter what I do... how hard I try... No matter how, how compliant I am they just won't_ shut up_."

Against his better judgment, Todd reached out and took Johnny's hand. The fleshless claws tried to twitch away, startled by the first consensual touch in... perhaps since the beginning. Todd thought this might be the first time the two of them had ever touched, period. It certainly seemed likely. Perhaps Johnny was conscious enough of their relationship, past and present, to know that as well, for he looked at Todd and at last his eyes had lost some of their nightmarish—and even that was too polite a word—quality. They stared into his face with a soft, almost childlike surprise, an expression unheard of on the likes of him. The panic twisting his already marred features melted away, and for the briefest instant he appeared as he had long ago, on the farewell of that first holiday when freedom had been real and tangible and his.

"...Squee?" Wonder in his tired, thorny voice, and he sounded naïve, trusting, and still so young and unbelievable in its way, and it felt good to be able to produce such sounds from what could only be described as not so much a lost soul as an utterly decimated one.

"Nny." Todd's own voice calm, gentle but assertive, making sure Johnny was paying attention and not half lost in one of his hallucinations. "Would you—like to spend the night?"

He couldn't believe that the invitation had voiced itself at all, let alone that it had come from him. But there it was, hanging heavy between them, and judging from the startled expression unfolding on the ravaged face across their clasped hands, Johnny had heard too.

"What?" Johnny asked.

"Would you—do you want to stay here tonight?" Again, he asked it. Again, he invited death into his house. Was he stupid? Was he _insane? _

Well...

Okay, he certainly wouldn't doubt either option. But in the question he could feel no regret, and even more surprisingly, almost zero fear. If Johnny agreed, then...

Then, what?

* * *

Okay, okay I lied. In my last journal over on dA (which to any of you non-dAers I suggest you check over there on a regular basis for info), I said I'd have it figured out by now whether I was going to revamp the chaps or not. Well I had far less time than I thought I would this week to be all creative and shit. Any progress I made AS-wise was done in school (mostly during band practice, just try and figure _that_ one out why don't you), so nineteen is not complete. Also noticed glaring errors in eighteen, so I guess that's not done either.

Still debating the chapter length too. Just haven't had the chance to really sit down and look AS over. Until then, just sit on my shitty cliffhanger and rotate. No, I jest. I love you guys and your scary questions. Ask more for the Q&A I'm going to start working on once school is out!

See you in a week. A.N.

* * *


	10. Time

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** ShovelDuct, smilefortyeight, Greenbeard, Rainbow-Man, ZazuAndHyenaFan, ReoccuringComatose, and tasty cheez for being amazing followers.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Ten: Time**

* * *

Then nothing, Todd decided. Johnny would spend the night however he chose, somewhere in the house. He, Todd, would sleep until his alarm went off at five thirty, and be out of the house by no later than six fifteen, after an uncomfortable conversation over a one-sided cup of coffee. By the time he came home, Johnny would be gone. All that would show he had ever been there would be a few dishes in the sink, some knickknack or another completely thrashed and hastily squirreled away somewhere almost quaint in it's randomness, and a scrawled, scarcely readable message in crayon or whatever was at hand on a blank wall or mirror. Johnny seemed to have a thing for writing on large, inappropriate surfaces.

But there would be no trouble. It would be easy. Todd could handle this.

"I..." It was easy to see how torn Johnny was. He was as plain as day, sometimes. Everything showed on his face, once you knew how to look properly. "Is it safe?" he asked finally.

In a million ways, the answer was no. But Todd doubted the other would take it well if he phrased it so bluntly. However, Johnny had always valued him for his honesty, so it wouldn't do to start fibbing now. So the truth, but best to, not sugarcoat, but _lessen_ the blow by leaving a few things out. Only tell Johnny what he could handle. It was too dangerous otherwise.

It didn't help that their scope on "dangerous" had an irritating habit of being polar opposites, though.

"Well, probably not," Todd said with a soft laugh forced out by his diaphragm. "Nothing is ever _completely_ safe, right?"

Johnny looked troubled. "That's true."

"But don't you think it'd be nice to take a—a break from everything? You know, over there?" A nod pressed him on. "And my place is nice enough, or that's what I like to think." He smiled.

Another nod. "It's quiet too."

"Yeah. And if it gets too quiet, you can always watch TV. Not too loud, though. I've got work in the morning and I can't pull any more all-nighters. I'm pretty tired."

Johnny seemed taken aback. "Work?"

Todd sighed.

"Yeah, Nny. I work." More often than not Johnny still seemed to see him as the little boy he had taken under his wing on that first night they had been so discourteously pushed together. It was a little grating on the patience, but nothing either of them could fix. "Here, I'll get you a pillow and blanket. Just in case. Um, do you want—want some pajamas?" The image of Johnny wearing anything of his was both disturbing and curiously funny, though he could not for the life of him figure out what had provoked the questions at all. Johnny did not sleep, not ever. It was probably just an excuse to leave the room.

"No." Johnny sounded weird, but then again when had he ever sounded normal? Still...

"Okay. Back in a minute." A pause before he added lamely, "Make yourself comfortable." He practically ran for the stairs.

In his room Todd shook his head, scoffing at the ridiculousness of it all. The whole night was taking on an almost surreal kind of quality. God, if Guinness World Records could get their hands on Johnny, they'd have a field day. The champion insomniac with more blood on his hands than Adolf Hitler, and yet he had never been caught, not _once,_ and let's not forget he hadn't aged in like, what? Thirty, forty some-odd years? Not to mention his basement and its million-and-a-half levels stretched across half the city and who even knew how deep. And then there was the matter of—

Whoa, hang on there.

He paused, reaching for a pillow from his bed. That aging bit, it had to be wrong, right? Everyone got older in forty years, even the Antichrist, for god's sake. And although several decades of alien experimentation, time-space continuum hopping, ghost possession, and more explosions than there were digits in pi had considerably slowed down Todd's own aging processes, he still managed to look... thirty-fiveish, give or take. His fingers crawled to the iron key dangling from a long cord around his neck. Well... it paid to know said Antichrist so intimately too.

Shook his head. If he thought about it, thought about it hard enough, he could remember the early visits, before the respect, before the fame, before even Pepito, when Johnny had come through the window spouting advice like a demented older brother out of a cheap horror movie. Could remember the raw fear as a monster-clawed silhouette loomed with double rows of crooked teeth that tried to shape themselves into a kindly smile. And if you stripped away the wear and tear of that much service as a bon a fide hate funnel, the Johnny from then was the same as the Johnny sitting in his kitchen tonight.

A horrified frown crinkled his forehead into well-worn lines, his extended hand dropping limply against his thigh. It was so _hard_ to remember... The memory chip installed the first few years of puberty had been removed and replaced, but far from cleanly. Now things from before became blurred sometimes if he didn't remind himself now and then, and Johnny was one thing he never tried to keep close. But, if he thought enough...

"Oh god."

Forty years? That had just been a generalization of time, a joke, a flippant remark with no real thought put into it. But it was wrong.

It had been so much longer.

And Johnny had scarcely aged a day.

From downstairs floated up a high, broken whimper, as if Johnny had come to the same conclusion. With a painful swallow Todd forced himself to keep functioning, let the terrible thoughts flow without restriction but keep going.

Johnny was in bad shape, the absolute rock bottom, the worst Todd had ever seen him, and thus was about as predictable and just as safe as a mob of ill-tempered nuclear zombies. If he didn't go down in the next five minutes, _something_ was going to pop. So Todd kept going, taking care to tread slightly harder than he was accustomed to so Johnny could follow his movements as he prepared for what he now expected to be another sleepless night. His mind raced.

Why hadn't Johnny aged, even the slightest? The only possible explanation was the System's interference, but that only raised more questions. Again and again Pepito hailed Johnny a failure as a flusher, let alone as a human creature worth his weight in shit. Long discussions—curiously reluctant on Pepito's end—concerning the System and anyone and anything who had something to do with it had proven Johnny was indeed, a hopeless disappointment. And yet here he still was, working and killing and absorbing, a perfect little slave. To Todd it seemed an unlucky miracle Johnny could function at all. Hate did a lot of damage on a short term basis, and any one man shouldn't have been able to withstand so much of it for such an extended period of time, and that was true. Johnny had broken down a long time ago, broken down on more than one occasion, yet still the System drove him relentlessly, and with no end in sight.

Why Johnny? Why conform such a terrible misfit to the flusher mold when there were so many thousands of compatible candidates with nothing better to do in this very city alone? Todd sighed, pausing in the hallway, unconsciously staying out of sight if Johnny might be by the foot of the stairs. Fretful mutterings drifted up from the ground floor, pierced by short bursts of strained cursing. Todd flinched, wondering what kind of internal argument Johnny was suffering through. He felt something stir in the recesses of his mind, shake off the dust of disuse, and a wave of comfort washed over him.

_Why is he here?_

"Hey, Shmee," he whispered, hands clutching the pillow close to his chest. "Sure has been a while."

* * *

Accidentally stole the hate funnel thing from Zarla, so cred goes out to her. And the key thing seems to be a canon concept in the fandom (just look at the PepSquee club over on dA), so I don't really think I stole that from Lady-Yatexel, which is where I first saw the idea in action. If you don't get the memory chip thing, it made an appearance in Diet, one of my PepSquee oneshots.

I love when I accidentally write in some lyrics from a song I was listening to at the time. Who can spot the Ladytron, lol.

I've decided that rather than swamp my dA watchers with journal posts, I'll start using my LJ tonight, beginning with my decision on updates and all. There will be a link in my profile if I can figure out how to do that. Otherwise, go to my dA account and the link will be there.

Oh, keep forgetting to do this. Hi Mom! Everybody say hi to the woman what spawned my brain, m'kay?

See you in a week. A.N.


	11. Truth

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** Seshennu, BarkingPup, tasty cheez, Dancing Mouse, smilefortyeight, ZazuAndHyenaFan, xamagumox, ShiiLovesHim, Ladyyatexel, and Rainbow-Man.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Eleven: Truth**

_Never mind that. Why is he here?_

Todd was startled by the sharpness in the dry, whispered voice curling around in his brain. "I—he showed up and... I asked him to spend the night."

_What._

"He's—he doesn't sound that great, even for him, and he seems afraid to go home, so I... asked him to stay."

_Make him leave._

"Shmee—"

_Kick his ass out into the rain. He can't stay here._

"It's okay, Shmee. I think I'm pretty capable of handling Nny by now, don't you?"

_That's not the question though, is it?_

"What—what do you mean?"

_What else, what else? Is Johnny capable of handling __himself?_

An answer from Todd wasn't necessary. Any self-control Nny ever had had long since been eaten away. Or, if there _was_ still anything resembling control, it was buried beneath too many layers of madness for even Todd to see, he who probably knew Johnny best and had lived to tell the tale.

_I don't have much time left, but I need to know you're safe before I can sleep again._

He chewed his lip, absently remembering when there had been a bear for Shmee to inhabit, and when that bear had finally fallen apart, how hard it had become for Shmee to do anything, and despite all his resistance, he had at last submitted to the inescapable lethargy. In recent years whole months could pass before the voice could muster up the strength to say more than a handful of words. And now, when the cobwebs had grown so thick Todd had begun to think Shmee had gone silent at last, here he returned. The wry, deeply cynical voice, little more than a half-whisper but stronger and more sure than it had sounded in a long, long time. It was hard to remember the last time the voice had spoken so much.

_Squee!_

A soft gasp, and his attention was focused one hundred percent on nothing else but Shmee.

_Good. Now listen. Listen carefully._

"I am."

_Johnny is dying. Despite everything that damned System has done to prolong his service, his time has come._

A pause to catch whatever breath a disembodied consciousness needed.

_Whether he knows it or not, the System is making him find a successor. The System likes Johnny. It likes people like __him__. And whether __you__ like it or not, despite everything I've done for your benefit, you are... so very similar to him._

Shmee was quiet a minute, exhausted from his efforts. Todd was grateful for the few seconds given him to take this in. Hadn't he come to the same conclusion downstairs? If Shmee was admitting he had failed at something as big as this, well...

Fuck.

It _had_ to be true.

"What do you know?" Todd asked softly, backing out of the unlit hallway, closer to the stairs, trying to escape something inescapable and yet likewise drawn, morbidly eager to learn more. "What's going to happen?"

_I don't know everything. I've taught you that much, haven't I?_

"Yes, but—"

_Hush._

Another pause.

_Johnny is very sick. He always has been. There's never been any point trying to help him, as I've said since day one. Your __friend--_

The whisper became thick with obvious distaste; Shmee had never gotten along well with Pepito.

_--__put it aptly when he said that Johnny's kind do nothing but suck all the good out of a person. __The System has him hanging by a noose of his own creation, and if you're not careful he'll wrap it around your own throat. I agree, however. You do know him better than anyone, dead __or__ alive, though that Vargas fellow could have given you a run for your money._

Harsh, ragged sounds ripped through his mind, akin to glass in a trash disposal. Shmee struggled on to relay his message to his recoiling host.

_You've seen every aspect of Johnny's life, from the nails in the floorboards down to that terrible blood mural keeping the Beast asleep. You know __exactly__ why he is so miserable. Do you want that kind of lifestyle to look forward to? Do you want those same shackles that drag him through the sewers biting into your wrists? __They will__ have refined their techniques by now, boy. They've certainly experimented enough on Johnny. They could keep you squirming until the sun goes black if they felt like it. Imagine it; the rest of eternity spent in a bloodbath, filled with nothing but the negativity of an entire world gone to seed. You have heard him at his best, his worst, and everything else in the goddamn rainbow. Has any of that appealed to you even __once?_

"No. _God_ no." Eyes shut tight against too many memories spilling free and _Christ_ how had he forgotten how completely _fucked_ everything had been, was, and would continue to be as long as he allowed things to go on like they were? A few more steps out from the relative safety of the upstairs alcove.

_I see I've made my point._

"What do I do? Oh, _ngh_ shit! Shmee, I didn't know. I—I don't want to be like him!"

Wearily—_I know._

"Then what? What do I do?!"

_Get him out of the house before he breaks again. Have someone, __anyone__ come by and stay with you until he's gone off again. Even Pepito. He dislikes Johnny, yes?_

Todd let out a lungful of pent-up air in a single, hollow laugh. "That's a polite way of saying it."

_Yes. Also, if you want to get out of this—bzzt—!_

"Shmee?"

_--alright? You have to prom—se me you won't—zzzzzzz—you. Don't let him—zzzzz__**click**__._

"...Shmee?"

But Shmee was gone, sleeping again to collect energy for the next life-saving conversation, the next battle against thick headedness and naivety. Todd swallowed, pale and shaking, sweat beading on his face. Strained his ears to listen for any sound of Johnny, but everything was quiet. Too quiet. Nail-bitten fingers gripped the pillow, squeezed until it hurt before it was okay to quell the rising panic. Slowly, slowly a plan began to form, something easy and nonthreatening, and most of all completely inconspicuous. Well, inconspicuous as long as he timed it right, and here he was wasting precious minutes having an emotional breakdown. This would be easy. He knew how to handle Johnny.

_...touch you..._

"Squee?"

Doubly hit by unwanted and painful voices, he completely lost his cool, spun around wildly, and fell down the stairs.

Or he would have, if Johnny hadn't caught him five steps down.

...

Well, this was interesting.

Todd was supported by his armpits, one leg crumpled beneath him and the other stretched painfully upward, caught by the heel on the second to top step. Johnny's bony fingers dug into his flesh, finding support to stay upright by leaning close to Todd, stretching the younger man's leg still more. A grunt escaped Johnny; surprise and ill health had weakened his muscles to such an extent that even Todd's weight could be enough to send them both tumbling down wards.

But something was wrong.

The hard warmth pressing between his shoulder blades, to be more precise.

* * *

Yeah. Yeah, no. This is where things get scary.

I really liked writing for Shmee. I tried to keep him the way he sounded in the dream comic, where he rants about trauma sponges and all that. Did I succeed?

If you have questions, ask them! If I can answer them without spoiling much, then I will. Let's add to that imaginary Q&A over on my LJ!

See you in a week! A.N.

* * *


	12. Stairs

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** ReoccuringComatose, RockerRema13, Kailean, Rainbow-Man, ShiiLovesHim, smilefortyeight, and ZazuAndHyenaFan.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Twelve: Stairs**

Now, Todd was no virgin, and in no way could he be considered an idiot. But it still took a few seconds to put the idea of a hard-on hand in hand with Johnny. It was easy to think the man had no libido at all.

Yet here was something to the contrary, something completely mind boggling and, well, _disturbing._ There was no other word for it. He could almost hear the sound of his one and only plan slipping down the drain as he regained his bearings and wondered how screwed he was now.

Unfortunately, those few seconds of mystified rumination cost Todd his one shot at escape.

"_Squeeeeheeee._"

His voice was hoarse and thorny, but Johnny managed to carry a tune quite well, and that scared Todd all the more. Todd _knew_ no matter how bad his self-control became, Johnny, could _never_ say his name like that. "Squeegee, are you all right? I heard you, _talking_ to that bear again. You know I don't like it when you talk to him. Makes me wonder why you always leave the room to do it, Squee. Makes me wonder if you're talking about me. Good thing I came looking, huh? Otherwise you'd be in trouble."

His position made it difficult to talk, not that his heart beating a tattoo of fear against his ribcage was helping much. "Where... where's Johnny?"

"You're not making any sense." His voice hurt and confused now, asking why Todd had to go and say a thing like that, when he had always relied on him for stability, common sense, and most of all a strong dose of sanity. But underneath what would otherwise have been a normal, predictable reaction from Johnny, something laced itself through his voice, something foul and decidedly un-Johnny. Something truly mad, in all senses of the word.

"Come on, Squee. If this is a joke, it's not much of one and anyway I'm not in the mood to laugh." But Johnny _was_ laughing, a crazed smile ripping his face open, exposing his every broken, half-rotted tooth, and the skin stretched itself even tighter against his skull. Todd looked up with growing apprehension, not enjoying the upside-down view. Flinched as a piece of the black skin surrounding Johnny's glittering eyes flaked off, landing on the smooth surface of his glasses. He returned the smile weakly, transparently, but anything would do as his mind whorled. He tried to figure out what the hell was going on, and how to deal with it.

"I-I've always made it a point to n-never crack jokes of any kind... in front of anything remo-motely Nny-shaped." A pause to wheeze painfully. "I'm giving you the same—consideration."

"How kind of you."

Carefully tensed, the leg crumpled under his weight. Escape was foremost in his mind, but also he though of how he might help Johnny—later, when he was in a far less vulnerable position. "So—_rrgh_—I'm not kidding."

The wild expression stayed, though the dark, yellow-stained eyes gained a bright sheen to them that made Todd wonder if this would pan out as he hoped.

Johnny chuckled balefully, his thick nails sinking deeper than Pepito had ever gone, had ever wanted to go. Hot beads of blood slipped down Todd's arms and sides. He shivered. "I'm seeing a whole new side to you, _Todd_. I'm not sure I like it."

"The feeling is m-mutual, _Mr. Wall._"

The twisted face loomed in close, rubbing a bony jaw roughly against his temple. "Clever little boy," Johnny whispered.

"Not really. Nny never c—calls me Todd. I don't think he even—realizes that's my real name." He managed a strained laugh. "And you're a shitty actor."

"Mmm, true enough." A tiny sigh, his grip momentarily loosening. Todd swallowed, afraid to look up anymore, afraid of what would happen next, _afraid_. "How's this?"

There was a split-second pause, where something and nothing seemed to happen instantaneously, and then a brief, gut-wrenching six-inch fall before Johnny—and it was Johnny, no doubting that this time—very nearly dropped Todd before catching him again. A pained, doglike whine escaped Johnny's throat, betraying his sickness, his weakness, betraying how little remained of the supernatural strength bestowed to him by the System.

"Shit!" The curse barely escaped Johnny to touch down inside Todd's ears. "What—where—_shit_ are you okay?"

That six-inch fall had brought Todd's head that much closer to the heat between Johnny's legs, and it was distracting on a whole new level. "Y-yeah. I'm great."

"What the_ hell _happened?"

"I... I tripped. You caught me." A pause, his thoughts racing. "You don't remember?"

"I—I didn't—no, you're—it was--_ngh!_"

If Todd had allowed himself to look up, he would have seen an all too human expression driving across Johnny's face; a hard mixture of confusion, anger, and shame. Johnny swore again, something far choicer than his usual vocabulary.

"It's happening again. _Again._" A sob shook his emaciated frame, clawing up the walls of his chest cavities.

Todd shook along with him, cringing as the muscles in his crushed abdomen ground against each other. His extended leg was falling asleep now, the elevation draining the blood from it, the pins and needles making it difficult to think. Had to escape. Had to escape. Had to escape.

But _fuck._ This was _Johnny._ Even if he managed to get out of this bind, how could he just walk away, leaving the man he'd known longer than anyone in the clutches of the System?

He couldn't.

Delicately, Todd asked, "What is, Nny? What's happening?"

But Johnny seemed incapable of any kind of logical response, for he was being eaten alive by whatever else lived in his head, tormenting and humiliating and mining deeper and deeper. Anguished, incoherent noises piled on top of each other in their haste to get out. His fingers gripped and relaxed, gripped and relaxed blindly against Todd's shoulders, biting into the crescent-shaped wounds already encircling both joints. Nonsense words streamed out along with the incomprehensible sounds, but Todd couldn't make them out. Again and again nails pierced vulnerable skin, the gristle and filth coloring them searing with potential infections. Todd grabbed Johnny's wasted forearms, feeling old suicide scars and disease soaking thin, ragged sleeves, and though it repelled him he held on tightly, an organic anchor and tracking system trying to guide the S. S. Johnny into safer waters. But, it seemed Johnny wasn't even on planet Earth right now, and no amount of screaming would bring him back, and as Johnny's diseased, bloodstained fingers began to strike bone, Todd decided there was only one thing left to do.

He launched.

The leg curled spring-like beneath him straightened with a sharp creak, propelling him like a Jack-in-the-Box and dragging Johnny along for the ride. The crown of his skull met the angular jaw with a crack that sent stars bursting in Todd's vision, pain shooting red branches through his body. Distantly he was amazed at how high they were going, and at the strength he often forgot he possessed. But perhaps he had pushed off with a little too much eagerness. They were going awfully high now, the angled ceiling uncomfortably close. But they rotated, Johnny mounting over him and now the beige carpet was inches from the back of Todd's head. Rotating, now an inch from his forehead. Agonizing pain as his noise struck a ledge and blood splashed across his glasses. Another gut-wrenching second and it seemed he'd miscalculated completely and he was going to be crushed, but momentum kept them going. His eyes kissed the ceiling once more before they landed with a spectacular crash against the tiles.

Johnny's ribs snapped like dry kindling beneath Todd, the cry in his throat becoming a high shriek, a cry that was cut cleanly and viciously as inertia doubled Todd's weight on top of him and his back struck tile with splintering force. Momentum continued, not yet spent, and Todd rolled off of Johnny, hearing another terrible crack from the man. Todd landed badly on one wrist, finally ending the fall with a violent meeting between his back and a heavy bookshelf, which retaliated by emptying some of its contents onto his head.

Quiet.

Apart from his ragged breathing, the pounding of his heart, and the far-off ticking of a clock, there was nothing. Carefully Todd sat up, hissing as his spine protested, and assessed the damage. Fingered the cuts and welts, the growing bruises and the rug burns, the grinding of splintered bone fragments in his nose and wrist, both quite broken. Assessed the damage thoroughly but kept a careful eye on the dark, crumpled form at the foot of the stairs. No, he decided after he was finished, a trip to the emergency room wasn't necessary. He had the knowledge, experience, and equipment to care for such injuries in his own house, but now there was one glaring, unavoidable problem.

Body disposal.

After all, to the rest of the world, Johnny didn't exist. He couldn't exactly go with the "he broke into my house, officer" ploy when the cops couldn't even see Johnny. They'd probably just trample all over him on their way to chastise Todd on the seriousness of prank calling the Feds.

This kind of awkwardness—with variations not always including Johnny's victims—had happened in the past.

He sighed, momentarily distraught. The idea of disposing of a corpse wasn't what made him feel cold and scared and very, very small. He had done such things and worse many times, willingly and not. No, that wasn't it.

This was _Johnny._

Long sentences are long. OH WELL.

The Q&A is up now over on my LJ. A link will be provided in my ffn bio, along with joining the growing mass of stuff in my dA journals. Got questions? Ask me and I'll do my best to figure out what the hell I'm talking about in AS.

Could y'all figure out the position Todd and Nny were in on the stairs? I tried my best to portray it, but I think I still left something to be desired.

See you in a week. A.N.

* * *

* * *


	13. Monster

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to: **BarkingPup, ZazuAndHyenaFan, Rainbow-Man, smilefortyeight, ShiiLovesHim, and Kailean.

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Thirt****een: Monster**

_You can't just... sit here._

Twitched, grimacing as his back creaked ominously. "You're still awake, Shmee?"

_Just barely, but the situation is that dire._

"Well, what should I do?" Todd hissed as he gestured automatically with his damaged hand towards Johnny.

_The plan hasn't—rrgk—changed. Not drastically, anyhow._

"What?"

_Don't be an idiot on p-purpose. It's unb-b-becoming. __Ack—!_

Heavy panting. Todd waited patiently, knew it was foolish to say anything when Shmee was already this drained.

_Run, boy. Get out of this mess as f-fast as you can. Don't come ba-ack until it's ssssafe again. Pep—o can tell you when._

"Why?" He averted his eyes from the foot of the stairs. It hurt to look. "He's... Nny's dead. I _killed_ him."

Todd expected all kinds of responses to that, including laughter. He knew Shmee very well. But the cynical giggling that rubbed his cerebrum raw was not something he had even remotely forewarned himself against. He'd never even known such a broken sound was possible.

_And here I thought I'd taught you something._

"Shmee...?"

_The—zzt—the System loves Johnny entirely too much. Do you think a simple tumble down the stairs will finish him off?_

Shivered. "But his ribs—his _neck_—"

_You could put that __thing_ _through a wood chipper_ _and he'd come out better than he went in if you g-gave him enough time. Don't you remember all the gunshots you used to hear? That was him, shooting __himself._ _And he di—sst—died every time. Think, boy! You __know_ _him. Do you think h-he would put up with the System's torture without breaking down?_

"But--"

_There is no killing Johnny. Run!_

"I—"

"You little bitch."

_Todd__--__zzzghtnoarghkghbtzzzzzzzz—_**click.**

"Shm--"

Shmee was dead.

Todd looked into Johnny's twisted face and couldn't react, too stunned by the complete solitude in his mind to do anything. He'd always had Shmee, all his life, and now?

Nothing.

Nothing but Johnny.

"I trusted you, Squee. I thought you liked me."

Finally a growing horror as one skeletal hand latched onto his knee. So fast, and Todd hadn't even heard him move. He was frozen, unable to move at all, and now Shmee's warning made sense.

_Don't let him touch you._

Why? Why now, when previously this night's few contacts had left merely a curious tingling sensation running along his skin, something scarcely noticeable and easily ignored, something to pass off as just the kind of subtle weirdness that always happened when Johnny was near? Why?

Because Johnny was looking for an heir to his fucked up throne, and the System was giving him every means to get one. Somehow, Todd's abysmal luck plummeted to an all-new low as he realized Johnny's every touch was poison. After all, didn't he have ten lovely puncture marks in his shoulders? Straight to the bloodstream, and now he was paralyzed.

Johnny's eyes burned him. "I thought you were safe."

_I am, I am!_ Todd wanted to cry, _It was an accident!_ But the numbness, the stupid lethargy, had already spread to his throat, and his lips moved without noise. Well, he lamented, it wasn't as if Johnny would have bought that anyway. They were two sides of the same coin, after all. Who else knew the other so well?

Johnny saw the truth in his eyes, in his silence. "_Goddamnit_!" he half sobbed, half shrieked. "Fuck, Squee! I _trusted_ you, and—and—you're just like—" he seemed incapable of halting his righteous fury, too overcome, a slave to his rampant emotions. "Jesus _Christ!_ You tried to kill me, didn't you?"

No, I _did_ kill you, Todd thought sadly. I killed you, but I'm the one who's going to stay dead, aren't I? He stared remotely at the monster seething brokenly inches from his bloody face. He'd always figured Johnny would be the one to do him in. The only question had been when. He leaned against the bookshelf again, barely feeling the throb of bruised ribs, the sharp pain as he banged his wrist against a thick hardcover. Well, he thought, his brain fogging with whatever sickness Johnny had inadvertently loosed inside him, now was as good a time as any.

If anything, he was just surprised he'd lasted this long.

Johnny swore again, leaping to his feet in a flurry of indignant, confused anger. "So you're not going to deny it?" A hiss of emotional pain. "You, _Squee_ you're the only thing I've got left. I'm all alone otherwise. I _need_ you." A helpless gesturing of his hands, and his ribs rubbed against each in protest, even as they knit themselves together again. "Don't just sit there staring! Are you going to even try to explain this? I—goddamn—I—this, this _relationship_—" A brief expression of disgust spasmed through his muscles, hating the definition of the word and his inability to find one less revolting to him. "—we have is the closest thing to normal I've ever had! You—you can't betray me like this, you can't take this away!"

Normal? _Normal?_ Todd would have laughed, consequences be _damned,_ if he could have. What about Devi? What about Edgar? Those were relationships were worth remembering. They had been worth it. Fuck, even that psycho Jimmy was more normal than this. But you forgot them all, didn't you Johnny. Did you forget all those late nights you used to climb through my window and tell me all about them? Do you remember how happy they made you? Do you remember the word you're incapable of saying? Do you remember _love?_

This isn't love, Johnny. These are chains. I'm bound to you, committed. You never gave me a choice.

Do you remember where I buried them, Nny?

Do you remember how they died?

If he could speak, Todd might have finally confronted Johnny with these and a thousand other questions. He would have admitted to a scathing and all too true fear of the Scary Neighbor Man, of the truth, that everything that had gone wrong in his life stemmed from Johnny's influences. And the truth, you destroy everything you touch, Johnny. A modern day Midas. Instead of gold, you make corpses.

But Todd could say nothing, so he waited, drenched in the blood pouring from his nose.

The rage, the madness, the betrayal, the incomplete knowledge that this had happened before with others and would always happen every time he tried to get close to someone, all this filled Johnny and pushed him over the razor edge that had kept Todd safe before this.

"S_ay__ SOMETHING!_" It came out as a wild shriek, with eyes bulging, hands flailing and groping through the empty air for something to grasp, perhaps an off switch to this terrible moment, a reset button.

Nothing. Todd stared, his eyesight blurring curiously. His glasses had survived the fall, hadn't they? Yes, they were still resting on his rapidly swelling nose, so why--?

Oh.

He was crying.

* * *

Aegri Somnia's one year anniversary was on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008. If you're so inclined, a journal about just what AS means to me, the writer of this story, has been posted on dA. It is entitled "Anniversary." The general consensus from my dA readers has been one of shock and gratitude. An eyeopener, if you will. The Q&A should be updated very soon. I know I forgot to put a link in my bio. I'll do that once I finish updating it.

See you in a week. A.N.


	14. Burn

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to: **BarkingPup, smilefortyeight, Kailean, Rainbow-Man, ZazuAndHyenaFan, Incothe, ShovelDuct, and ShiiLovesHim

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dream: Chapter Fourteen: Burn**

* * *

Steel claws smashed into his side, sent him flying across the room. He hit the wall several feet from the ground and crashed in a dazed heap, but in seconds Johnny's hands were on him again. No words, no beseeching desperation, nothing but brutality filed to a killing point driving ruthlessly into him. His survival instinct flared only briefly, just enough to muster up the strength to administer a surprisingly powerful left hook given his state, but a few cracks of his skull against the wall quickly put an end to his resistance. He let his hands fall, darkness creeping into the edges of his vision, and waited to see how this would progress.

There were so many ways a person could die, and Johnny knew them all.

Johnny's hands left his throat, and instead softly stroked his face, fingertips tracing laugh lines, frown lines, scars—some self-inflicted, other simply the result of a full life—through the drying, smearing blood. His other hand gently placed itself on his chest, fingers splayed. It stayed there a moment before dropping off, trailing with a ghostly, shivering touch down, down, down...—!

No. No, this wasn't possible. Johnny didn't—it wasn't like—he'd never—holy shit. Holy, motherfucking _shit._ This wasn't happening. But it was. Johnny was, was—Todd couldn't even put the words together. This just didn't make sense. Johnny didn't _do_ this—_this!_

Johnny didn't do _sex._

But their mutually unbuttoned pants begged to differ.

Cold air sank into exposed flesh, his shirt somehow halfway up to his armpits and his pajama bottoms slipping from his hips and _today_ of all days he'd gone commando and wasn't that just spectacular. Fetid breath against his neck and goose bumps trailed the length of his aching spine, sending unpleasant fingers along his scalp. There were no words, no explanations, nothing but touch and smell and sight and something unexplainable. How could he feel everything so extremely when his nerves were dead? Did it matter? Perhaps he'd struck his head at some point during the night with Pepito and all of this was some horrible concussed nightmare. He wouldn't mind that. In fact, he hoped to fucking god it was true. Otherwise—

An icy palm pressed against the sensitive muscles above his genitalia and he hissed, his eyes snapping wide. When had he closed them? That didn't matter, but he was no longer sprawled against the living room wall. Now his spine was bent at an almost ninety degree angle to the dining room table, and Johnny wasn't just on the verge of groping him; the man was _kissing him._

No, that was too polite. It was better described as two incompatible orifices grinding against each other with the savagery of a high-speed whetstone against a rusted blade. Jagged teeth and crusted lips and a merciless tongue tearing at him, sparks and copper pooling hot beneath his tongue, between the ridges of his taste buds, dripping slick down his mute throat. He could do nothing, his fight-or-flight mechanisms chained deep inside. All he could do was take it and hope it would be over quickly.

When he opened his eyes again another time skip had occurred.

Oh—he didn't feel—oh please—not this—**NO.** It wasn't happening. _Johnny_—no, but it was undeniable. Still Todd tried to wake up, his consciousness thrashing in the prison his limp body had become, but nothing refused to stop being nothing. Johnny was—_Johnny was—_

There was pain, more pain than he had ever experienced, as if it wasn't skin but glass and asphalt and steel and pieces of shrapnel dragging across his open nerves. He arched his spine, the small of his back pressing hard into the sharp line of the table, fingers scrabbling against Johnny's back, small hitches escaping his lungs. He couldn't look. It wasn't possible. But it was. He had to accept what was happening. He had to accept.

Johnny was inside him.

Johnny was raping him.

In out in out in out in out in make it stop out in out in out in out in out in out screaming without sound nails sinking into skin in out in out in out in out no words no explanation in out in out in out shivering inarticulate groans in out in out in freeze hiss a flush of white-hot warmth what was _that_ please god not this out again and again and again and time seemed to fail and they were caught in a void as a slave enslaved the last living human that truly cared about him.

Johnny came more than once in that awful stillness before time began to creep forward again, but it was impossible to know the real number, and Todd didn't want to know.

Slowly words began to form in the white noise, broken and disjointed and clumsy, and the pace began to slow. Couldn't make them out; could do nothing but twitch across the wood like an electrocuted tarantula, nothing but limbs flailing aimlessly, the smell of ozone, colors spilling out of their lines, splashing against his eyes and he was finally senseless to whatever Johnny was doing to him now. Something that burned, something that ate away at him. Not just his flesh; this something ate at his mind, and his soul. It changed something vital, something small but so utterly him that without it he was defenseless. Whatever Johnny was doing took away the one thing that kept him separate, that kept him free.

The noose slipped over his head without resistance.

Incomprehensible sounds. Mechanical thrusting. Rotten breath poring across his face in panting waves. Bony fingers keeping him pinned, but with every groaning second became less sure in their animal fixation. Jarred an elbow against the table, sending numbing streams running to his fingertips. A violent twitch, his fried circuitry struggling to jumpstart his instincts, or at the very least his brain before his lungs and heart lost all function completely. Screaming, but impossible to tell whom from whom.

The noose tightened around his neck.

"I…"

The fingers bruising his arms fell slack, mere pressure rubbing against his skin.

"What…"

The pressure was building again. Johnny was going to corrupt him even deeper. That heat, that burning, was trickling in and destroying the vestiges of his humanity, and he accepted it without complaint.

What else was there to do?

"**WHAT AM I DOING?!**"

There was a terrible ripping sound, and the pain renewed itself in a lightening strike that left him weak and formless. A superheated liquid spilled across his inner thigh, searing the flesh and making him groan. A raucous sizzle, and the smell of cooking meat permeated the air. Dimly he heard crashing and screaming and perhaps the sound of someone screaming back but he couldn't be sure. The toxins coursing through his systems were still at work and it was hard enough to just keep breathing, let alone figure out what hell was waiting to greet him next.

With nothing pinning him to the table and his own muscles currently about as powerful as those of newborn kitten, he slithered to the floor with a dull thud, banging his head against the leg of a chair. More screaming, more crashing, a tremulous hand on his face, something cold and wet and small that splashed down his bloody cheek.

And then Johnny was gone.

00000000000000000

Fic related: I'd like to give this an 18+ warning, but considering I'm seventeen I think that's a bit too hypocritical even for me. Also, I am the very antithesis of a sexually active homosexual male, so all mistakes made in the sex scene are attributed to that. Also also, please remember my author's note in chapter one. I did not write this for pleasure; this was necessary to the plot. I wish it wasn't, but here it is.

Personal journal related: My mom found it, despite that she reads AS on ffn. She found it amusing; disturbing, but amusing. This whole week she's been cracking JTHM jokes, including one or two idle threats of filicide. She apologized later though. Oh, and I realized that when describing my dad I forgot to mention that his name is Jonnie, said the same as Nny's. Funny, but in that awkward, lame kind of way.

Random: Work today (I haven't gone to bed yet so I still say it's Thursday ssh) was slow. So slow I read a kids' book that caught my eye. It's called _Woolvs in the Sitee_ and it scared the almighty shit outta me. If you're ever in your local library/bookstore, look for it. The art is beautiful, the story heart-wrenching. I luffed it.


	15. Decision

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** ShovelDuct, ShiiLovesHim, Incothe, Kailean, Rainbow-man, smilefortyeight, and ReoccuringComatose

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Fifteen: Decision**

* * *

Vomit spattered, loud in the darkness, striking wood and canvas. He gagged, choked out a strangled sob that tore the muscles in his throat. Dug his nails deep into the floorboard and tried not to collapse into his filth like some animal as his mind replayed the night over and over and over, every detail excruciatingly intact. For once he begged the Swiss cheese masquerading as his brain to forget everything, _everything_ but as usual whenever he asked for something he was denied.

He could see Todd struggling beneath him as if it were happening still, as if he had never come to his senses and wrenched himself away. The images played again and again, over and over, ruthlessly. Physical memories strummed roiling waves across his skin. Deep shudders and shivers wracked his body, and the floorboards groaned and the walls twitched and dust rained down from the bowing ceilings. The very air seemed to vibrate with the Wall's urgency. It called him. It knew. It _knew._ Not only that; It was _responsible._ It made him do—do—oh god, oh god oh god _that_. The Wall wanted to talk, _now_. It wanted to explain, It wanted to pacify, nullify, justify, to make sense of his latest atrocity.

But, how could It? He had done something truly unspeakable, something so foul and unparalleled by any of his past sins. This was against what the dregs of his ethics, of his morals still stood against. This, what he had done to _Squee_ was _wrong_. And the Wall wanted to slap a Band-Aid on this nightmare and pretend it was no big deal?

It wanted to talk, to warp and melt and blur and erase and convince, as It had to make him do—_that_—at all.

It would make him believe that Squee had _deserved_ that, or even, had _wanted_ that.

It would make him think that Squee had _forced_ him to do that, or worse, that _Squee_ had done that to _him_.

It wanted to tighten the noose another inch, drive the nails a little deeper.

Fuck that.

A trail of vomit hung from his lip, rank and chunky with pieces of half-digested pizza. He coughed wetly and pawed at his face with a shivering hand, merely smearing it across his cheek. He snarled and furiously rubbed at his face with one sleeve. God dammit! God damn it. He sat there, thinking, hating his voices, hating the Wall, hating the System, _hating._

He was done with It. He was getting out of this madness. Enough was enough was enough, and if things kept turning out like this he was apt to do something else, something worse if that was physically,_ remotely_ possible, and he wasn't going to stick around to find out what.

He was no longer safe near anyone, he could see that now. He had to get out of all of it, of all society. Anywhere a human lived and breathed he could no longer take up space. There was no escaping the System—he'd learnt that long ago—but he could still do his job without house 777. Plans had been conceived in bits and pieces, remembered in the journals scattered throughout the rooms high above. It would take time to organize, but what did that matter?

He had all the time in the world.

Still, he couldn't lay here sobbing. When had that ever accomplished anything? Slowly he forced his muscles to make the effort, and hauled himself to his feet with only minimal pain. His face was soaked with sweat and tears, his mouth awash with slightly foamed saliva and snot, and the dead skin around his eyes felt as if it was missing in great chunks, revealing much more of the yellowed orbs than was normal, and probably not safe if it were true. The gaunt features twisted against themselves as he realized he was still... indecent.

There it was, for all the world to see, bulging hideously out of his zipper, blushing and stiff and dripping with fluids. Semen, and blood that wasn't his own. How had he gotten home? He couldn't remember. Shit, last thing he needed were police knocking on the door. They always knew where he lived whenever he tried to escape the System in earnest, and here he was plotting just that.

Foreign laughter. Laughter that took place outside his head. He whirled around, one hand stuffing that terrible appendage away while the other reached for the blade hidden in his boot. His fingers stumbled over nothing.

"Who's there?" he croaked into the darkness. Remembered now. How knives always made Squee uncomfortable, that he had gotten into the habit of removing all of his sharp regalia before visiting his neighbor. Just in case.

In case of what?

In case he lost control. Like tonight.

_**Guess you finally got some use out of your dick after all, huh Nny?**_

Oh fucking—He did _not _need this now. But that was the point, wasn't it? To distract him, to delay him with pedantic arguments and incoherency until this brief clarity passed him by, unused and quickly erased from his memory. But he couldn't ignore Meat. The Wall only knew something in his circuitry was slightly amiss, that he hadn't particularly _enjoyed_ the night's events, but it couldn't tell the specifics of what he was thinking. Not yet anyway. He still had enough distance between them and just enough shreds of will power to fight it, a little. So it threw old "friends" his way, both to detain and to probe him. He had no choice in ignoring Meat though. Ignoring the Wall's machinations was a very, very stupid thing to do.

He'd learnt that the hard way.

"Fuck you, Meat."

_**You've got the boy to do that with, or is he not enough now that you've done the test drive?**_

"That wasn't supposed to happen. I never planned—"

_**Oh, but you never plan it, do you Johnny. You become excited and your tenuous grip on reality slips, and suddenly you find yourself covered in the blood of another innocent. It's always an accident, right? It's **__**never**__** your fault. These feelings aren't yours; there's an external puppeteer pulling your strings, making you commit these heinous crimes. Well, I hate to disappoint you, Nny, but I've never seen a puppet with a string controlling his **__**cock**__**.**_

Something in his chest cracked, a shotgun blast in the silence. A hiss of pain and he stumbled, tripped over his own feet, and fell to his knees.

_**Careful. Squee hurt you pretty bad, despite all appearances to the contrary. Heh. Kinda funny actually. Wouldn't call it ironic, necessarily, but it comes pretty damn close.**_

Hard to breathe. Strange sounds nearby. Shuffling, dragging sounds. A stumble and a sudden intake of surprised air, scuffs. Drowned out now by the creaking, groaning sounds emanating from his chest cavity. Ow. Ow. Shit, **OW.** What did Squee do to him? But everything before, before ithat/i was blurring into uncertainty, vague shapes deep below the surface. Something… on the stairs?

Nibbling sensations itched up and down his lungs. That probably wasn't good. The footsteps were so close. Soft-soled shoes meeting splintered, dusty wood, a creak as weight was applied to a particularly weak section. A low sigh.

Right in front of him.

"You screwed up again, didn't you?"

That voice. How had he forgotten? How had he forgotten? Sharp needles drove down the length of his spine as he slowly forced the heavy weight of his skull upwards. His eyes met a pair of glasses reflecting blue light without any kind of origin. Stared, dumbstruck, his right hand twisting the fabric of his shirt uselessly, the itches too deep to scratch.

It wasn't possible. How had he forgotten?

"…Edgar?"

* * *

Incothe's birthday is today. Happy Fourth too. Make her happy and join her club, SpookyAndTennaClub over on dA. Obviously, it is for all who love Spooky and Tenna. Join it. Link on my dA journal.

Chapter related: Omfg Edgar.

Personal: My hair is quite curly today.


	16. Cruel

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to: **ReoccuringComatose, tasty cheez, BarkingPup, SuggestionGirl, devShiiLovesHim, devsmilefortyeight, devRainbow-man

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Sixteen: Cruel**

Edgar Vargas offered him a hand up, a reassuring smile tugging at his lips. Carefully, half-afraid this wasn't happening and yet half-afraid it was, Johnny took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. A hard flicking sound, and ugly yellow light bathed the room. He flinched, jerking his head back towards the stairway he'd just crawled from.

"Easy, Nny. We're alone."

His eyes adjusted, albeit slowly, and it was real. Whatever was happening now, it was real. It had to be. Now it was just a matter of keeping it that way, of not completely ruining this. Edgar was _here,_ and he _remembered._ He had to make this count.

"You're alive." Despite the flat tone to his voice, the question was unmistakable.

Edgar laughed, soft and low, screamingly normal in the very room Johnny now remembered slaughtering him in. "Of course not. You killed me in that machine over there when Squee was still in grade school."

"And how long ago was that?"

"I don't know, Johnny. I'm dead. I don't really have a concept of time anymore."

"But—"

Edgar adjusted his glasses. "I know you think this is real, that I'm real. I... I wish it was, and I'm sure, in a way, that my… real self would too. But I can't be alive. No one could survive that machine." He pointed at it. "See? You never cleaned up after you killed me."

"Your corpse..." He couldn't finish.

Edgar knew what the question was anyway. "Squee buried me."

Johnny's throat clicked loudly, his fingers still scratching at his chest. "That was nice of him."

"He's always tried. Especially for the few of us who actually liked you back."

"Shit. I—I'm sorry. I'll clean that up later, okay?"

"There's no hurry." A brief pause before Edgar coughed and said, sounding curiously embarrassed, "Johnny?"

"Hngh?" Talking hurt, but inarticulate grunts hurt worse. That was something to keep in mind.

"Can I—? Um." Edgar tried again. "Can you let go of my hand?"

They both looked down at their clasped hands. Johnny saw that his was covered in blood. Squee's blood. Better not to think of that; it didn't improve the pain in his chest, and made it difficult to keep his easygoing façade up. He let go quickly and tried to rub his palms clean on his pants.

He changed the subject. "Why… why are you here, Edgar?"

Edgar smiled again, but his eyebrows furrowed, canceling out the easy shine of his teeth. His eyes were still hidden behind a television blue glow. He'd have to ask Edgar about that eventually. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Johnny fumbled for an answer, still distracted by the blood drying in the creases of his palms. "You—I can't remember you ever showing up recently. Just when—" He paused, trying to clear the dust away from his few clear memories. "When..." The smell of his vomit was making him dizzy, made it harder to concentrate, and he walked towards the center of the nearly empty room where the air was slightly less noxious.

"Nny?"

"You show up whenever Nailbunny stops talking."

"That's right." Edgar followed after, though he kept his face politely averted from the solitary machine. "Can you remember why he would ever do that?"

"I—" He didn't like Edgar's eyeless gaze, so Johnny instead let his focus drift across the two murals still displayed on either side of the machine. It really was amazing, how talented he had once been. Having Edgar here made it that much easier to remember the time before he'd ever realized the truth behind the Wall. Before he'd ever heard of flushers or waste-locks or the System. Before Heaven or Hell, period.

"Johnny—"

He cut Edgar off, his fingers tracing the faded gouche and coming back dusty. Didn't question how he'd gotten to the painting when he didn't remember moving from the center of the room. In the state of mind he was slipping into, it scarcely mattered. "Nailbunny stopped talking several hours ago," he said calmly, as if speaking of the weather. "He only ever does that when It decides I need to be reset. Or to put it more bluntly, when I have a proper chance of killing myself." He grinned. "Temporarily, anyhow." Looked over his shoulder at the figment and noticed Edgar cast no shadow. Well, that made sense. "You started showing up like this a long time ago. After the second time."

What did that mean, he wondered? The words had slipped from him automatically, no thought process behind them. But they must have made sense to Edgar, for he winced visibly.

"Yes. I did."

"What I never understood was why you came back at all. You're not important to anybody. No one missed you except me, and who the fuck ever cared what I thought?"

"I... I don't know, Johnny."

"Or how. I just don't get it." He spun around, gasping at the renewed pain in his chest, and gestured sharply at the flaky pools of old, old blood. "You came back from the dead, didn't you? So why is your body still _rotting in my yard?_ I know it's there, Edgar. I remember checking after you came back."

"Ah—" Edgar looked distinctly uncomfortable, fidgeting in place and scratching just under his right eye, then wiped as if he had felt something wet there. "If, if I remember right, I _did_ come back in that body. After that, we were..." He looked at Johnny almost desperately, asking without words for him to supply the correct word. Johnny merely stared, waiting and aching, pins and needles tearing through his spine. "We were...well _friends,_ I think, for well, a while, before..."

"Before what?" Johnny asked in an eager, strained voice.

"Before you killed me in that machine." An apologetic expression. "Again."

It was Johnny's turn to wince. "Talk about adding insult to injury."

Edgar's laugh was mostly artificial, and died quickly. Perhaps that had not been the best thing to say to his bestest bestest friend. Oh well. Couldn't take it back now.

Johnny exhaled sharply and tasted pennies. "So what does it mean this time? Which one is it?"

"I'm sorry?" Edgar seemed distracted, as if remembering what Johnny could not.

"Am I going to kill myself to escape this—this _monstrosity_ I'm becoming for the Wall, or am I to be reset into something even worse?"

"Have you ever considered _not_ killing yourself?"

Johnny laughed, though it hurt terribly to do so. "When has _that_ ever been an option? All the System wants is blood. I kill a hundred people to slack It's thirst and It's after me again in a week. So I keep killing, and killing, and killing, and then finally I break and become useless. So It kills me through my own hands, and the merry-go-round starts up again with me a little less human than before." A dead, hollow sound escaped his burning throat, and he couldn't go on.

"'How could a loving and intelligent Creator be behind such savagery and bloodshed?'"

He glared. "You're quoting something, aren't you?"

"Yes." Edgar seemed almost embarrassed again, as if he hadn't meant to ask that aloud. "But the question still stands."

"God doesn't give a fuck about anybody. I've already explained this a thousand times." Christ, his throat hurt. He couldn't seem to stop talking though. Perhaps he was afraid what might happen if he let Edgar fade. Perhaps he was trying to stave off death, at least for a little while.

He didn't know why he bothered.

"I understand that, Nny. I just—"

"Don't waste your breath on him, Edgar."

Who was that now? Edgar raised a hand and stepped towards Johnny, but his focus was clearly on something behind him. "No, wait—!"

Something hard and heavy struck Johnny's temple and he went down like a stone.

* * *

Thanks to Incothe for pointing out that oils wouldn't last in a basement well and that it'd be hella hard to paint Johnny's huge murals with them, not to mention expensive. So oils became gouche, which from my limited online search on the media, seems to work better.

Also, I don't remember what I made Edgar quote, so don't ask.

Have questions? Ask them. I'm sitting down to update the Q&A again, since I've ignored it and there's piles of questions I've answered over on dA. Again, the Q&A is on my LJ. And for random fun that is almost always AS related, it would be smart to check my dA journals. Both are linked in my profile.

See you in a week.

* * *


	17. Addiction

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** tasty cheez, Finder77, Jhonenz-gurl101, Writers-Critique, Rainbow-man, smilefortyeight, ZazuAndHyenaFan, Incothe, ShiiLovesHim, RadioactiveMongoose

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Seventeen: Addiction**

* * *

"Devi, stop!"

She kicked him twice more in the kidneys before finally relenting.

The room swam before his bleary eyes, lurching, nauseating. Dazed, he managed to go through a checklist of what still worked and what felt broken. Unsurprisingly, the broken outdid the functioning by a landslide. He tasted a veritable flood of pennies now, and his inquisitive tongue found several gaps in his teeth. His aching ribs felt splintered and dislocated from their natural positions. Razor edged bone fragments rubbed against soft tissues with every gasping wheeze. His internal organs felt loose, floating, and curiously he now needed to pee very badly, though he doubted his bladder would void much urine at all. Everything hurt.

God, how long had she been beating him? His stomach clenched and he fought the urge to vomit a second time. This, this right here, _had_ to be rock bottom, didn't it? If it wasn't, than he wasn't sure he'd ever survive the bottom when he actually did find it. Or maybe he'd already punched through ages ago and this was all just free fall. Things seemed to be accelerating downward at an almost frenetic pace these days, which might explain some things.

Dimly he heard the two of them, Devi and Edgar, talking above him. Or rather, Devi was teetering on the edge of screaming and Edgar was doing his damnedest just to calm her down.

"—isn't going to change anything!"

"Yeah, but it makes _me_ feel fucking _great!_"

"Regardless, it serves no current purpose, does it? We're trying to find the motivation behind the System's recent manipulations and—" he sounded uncertain of what word would fit best, "—devolution of Johnny's mind, and here you are beating him into bloody pulp! It's counterproductive."

A soft pause, full of meaning Johnny couldn't grasp as his eyes had momentarily closed of their own will.

"And... well, it's almost _brutal_ to watch him hurt himself like that."

Johnny almost started to ask what Edgar meant by that, but then remembered his penchant for the imaginary.

"You won't even give me me the satisfaction of _pretending_ to kick his crazy little ass?" There was a curious undertone to the anger dominating her voice. A phrase came to Johnny's mind, something he'd read in a book once long ago, back when it was still worth it to read at all. The character, after a series of difficult journeys, was described as being "infinitely weary." That fit Devi like a glove, now.

"We don't have time for petty indulgences, Devi."

"Sure we do. Johnny said it himself; we've got all the time in the world. Fan-fucking-_tastic,_ right?"

"We don't know that for sure anymore." Edgar seemed to be struggling to keep his voice in check. "When was the last time he ever expressed _any_ sexual interest?"

Devi gave a bark of dead laughter.

Gentle hands uncurled Johnny from his fetal position, and despite his groans of protest, lifted him to his feet. He was unable to stand on his own yet and so suffered Edgar's closeness with no complaint. It was better than being on the ground, at least.

"Devi, this isn't the time for that. These are completely different circumstances."

"Funny, _I_ don't think so."

He made a frustrated noise. "Just help me get him up the stairs. I can't think straight down here."

"I am _not_ touching him."

"You seemed pretty happy to 'touch him' just a little while ago."

"That was different."

"Funny, _I_ don't think so."

"You're such a riot."

Johnny gurgled, attempting to say something along the lines of "Get off me, I'm fine," but it came out sounding like "Grizzngfmphnee cough hack." Warm, tickling air brushed across his neck and the outer shell of his ear as Edgar laughed without sound, probably feeling he shouldn't but unable to help himself. Johnny opened his eyes to see a pale, face-shaped smear topped by a purple blur loom menacingly, and he flinched as a harsh hand grabbed his upper arm. Fingers around his middle—they must have been Edgar's because thus far Devi seemed incapable of gentleness—gripped tightly, automatically, protective.

"Relax, Edgar. I'm not gonna hurt him."

"You have a history of saying that and doing just the opposite."

"Oh fuck you." But there was no real venom anymore. It was all just reflex.

They left the room and traveled upwards, pulling chains, flicking switches, and pushing buttons to illuminate their path. Edgar and Devi seemed to find stumbling around in a cave-like darkness unnerving, though Johnny didn't mind it much. He preferred not to see the extent of his madness.

The walls seemed to be slowly pressing in on them, and even the victims whose mouths were not sewn, taped, stapled, cauterized, or otherwise rendered mute were curiously silent.

_vibrations_

The silence was interrupted only by the soft, half-joking conversations between his two figments, punctuated by the occasional one-liner from himself that left a palpable awkwardness in its wake. Then, on the landing of one stairwell among many, Johnny slipped from their jointly reassuring grip to the filthy concrete screaming.

_what have you done_

_you weren't supposed to do that_

_don't listen you've done very well_

_no you went too far_

_you were just supposed to_

_he did just fine don't confuse the boy_

_wait you didn't_

_he did it eff i feel it too_

_it was for his own good_

_how can you say that_

_o god o god_

_look now you're scaring him_

_i no stop don't do this_

_you haven't already forgotten have you_

_bzzt—Nny whatever they're—ksst—ing isn't true!_

_Come back up—zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—oddamnit or so help me—zzksssh—ick your ass until __I__ puke blood—_

_what_

_Johnny please—zzzzzssssshzzz_ **click.**

_Nny don't—psssshhkt_ **click.**

_what have you—zztkzzz_ **click.**

_dboy shit damnit nny why—fizzzzzzsssh_ **click.**

_what is that who's there_

_**Mere figments, dear boy. Don't pay any attention to them. **__**I**__** am real.**_

_i—_

_**Oh Johnny. You poor, sad creature. Always forgetting your greatest accomplishments before you can ever truly savor them. It's all so empty in here, so devoid of existence. Oh, there are voices a-plenty in here, I don't mean in that regard.**_

_what do you—_

_**It—it is as if **__**you**__**, Johnny, scarcely exist within your own skull. Tragic really. I wish there were something I could do to **__**help**__** you remember—ah, but there is!**_

_please stop let me go i don't want—_

_**Nonsense. Haven't I always known what's best for you? Haven't I always cared for your wellbeing? Haven't I **__**always**__** been right?**_

_wait—!_

He returned briefly to consciousness, and heard a curious snapping, like plastic, hard and clean and violent. A vague, human sound above him, perhaps his name, and then he fell into the snow again. But Meat had changed things, changed them for the worse. It was pure images surging through his eyeballs. Second-long genocidal movies of all his past endeavors all piled on top of each other like the world's largest collapsed house of cards. The feelings, emotional and physical, bled into him one after the other, too fast, too fast. If he was still connected to his body by this time, he was sure his nerves had shorted out and his muscles had melted into putty. So fast, so much, so much blood.

How had he forgotten?

_**You see? You love it so. **_

_i can't no stop i hate it_

_**You say you hate the Wall and Its constant thirsting, the constant invisibility and solitude. You say you hate your existence and you try and try to blot yourself out but here you are and here you stay despite the best of efforts. You say you hate this life of chains, you say you hate and hate and hate, but do you ever put down the weapons of your profession?**_

Unable to reply, a twitching node of sentience and not much else.

_**No, and do you know why, Johnny?**_

There was... _something_ outside the cavernous, booming voice surrounding him in its tight, suffocating cocoon. Something trying to dig him out. Something calling out his name.

_**It is because you are addicted. You are diseased, plagued by a sick addiction to murder, to bloodshed. You find perverse pleasure in the feeling of dominance over another, in playing God in your own personal universe. Whether a life is extinguished or not based solely upon your whim thrills you. The Wall, the System, your metaphysical chains; all that is just an excuse you allow to go on to justify your addiction.**_

Closer... closer... what the hell was it?

_**The others, those figments percolating in your brain, tell you that these acts you commit are terrible, monstrous sins. They scorn and persecute you, and convince you that you are useless, and better off dead. But they are wrong.**_

Whoever it was was definitely calling his name, practically in his ear. But, still Meat was everything. Still Meat had more to say.

_**You are a glorious creation, the prototype of a brand new race of flushers. You have vaulted across the edge of human endurance and you have survived. No one else has accomplished what you have, or what you will. You are an instigator, a revolutionary, the patient zero of the wastelock condition. Little Squee will thank you greatly in his time in the ranks, you know.**_

_i..._

No. No. He hadn't. He wouldn't. It was impossible.

_What are you saying? What the fuck do you mean?!_

_**Why are you so angry? You've done him a great favor.**_

_F-favor? You call this a __favor?_

_**Why of course. Wouldn't you?**_

_No! No-no, fuck! He doesn't deserve this! I wouldn't wish the Wall on anyone!_

_**Oh ho, what lies you delude yourself with, Johnny. **_

_What?_

_**Squee was your dearest companion, wasn't he? And you permitted only those with which you had absolute trust to touch you. All flushers are the apprentices of past flushers, who were family, friends, or something more. The creation of a flusher is always a violent meeting between two life forms; it cannot be helped. Each time is different. It must depend on the people. But in it's way, it is all beautiful.**_

_I—I—you can't __possibly__—I RAPED SQUEE! HOW THE FUCK IS THAT BEAUTIFUL?!_

_**Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.**_

_You did not just say that. Oh. Oh Christ._ Something was close to him, something peeling away Meat's layers, something that could get him out of this, but he ignored it. He had to have answers, and Meat was being kind and supplying them for once. This was not an opportunity he could pass up. _Okay, wait. What does this mean now? For me, for Squee, for... everything?_

The meaning behind Meat's laughter was loud and clear.

_There's... there's nothing I can do for him, is there? I can't fix this, can I?_

_**Guns can only do so much. Even if you killed him now he would still belong to the System. I **__**so**__** look forward to taking that wretched bear's place in his mind. I'll take good care of him after you're gone. It will be so, so **__**beautiful**__** with him.**_

_It won't be. I won't let you!_

_**And how do you plan on doing that? ...Oh, you don't remember your's, do you?**_

_My—what?_

_**Well then, I'll just have to show you, won't I?**_

That splintering sound again, and this time he heard the voice calling to him, shaking his body violently, but could place neither name nor face to it. And he fell back in again, into a single memory. Just a glimpse, just a glimpse, but as the hands tore him out of Meat's embrace he was screaming. Screaming fit to rip his throat completely out and he couldn't stop, he couldn't stop when he ran out of air, he couldn't stop as dark spots burst in painful clusters in his eyes, he couldn't stop. So fast, so fast, so much. How had he forgotten?

A sickening sound of knuckles against flesh, deep and penetrating and more shocking than a bucket of icy water splashed over his head. His voice cracked and stopped, leaving him on the verge of hyperventilating, but at least he was back in reality, or as close to it as he ever got. A heavy weight bore down on him, arms pinning his face to the concrete. His shirt had ridden up and the floor was like ice against his stomach. Automatically he thrashed against this latest arrival but stopped quickly, simply too weak to fight it.

"You're going to crush him, Jimmy, get off!"

The hands released him, and with more reluctance the pressure abated slightly, enough to allow his chest to expand in shallow, painful hiccups. Thank god for Edgar, any version he could get.

_vibrations_

"What the hell was that?" Devi was almost always the first to notice abnormalities in the way the house worked and didn't. "What the _fuck_ just happened?"

"I don't know. Shit, that was scary though." Jimmy was good for getting him out of jams, like just now. The figment was still a terrible fanboy—probably why he was still on top of Johnny—but life under the System's machinations would have been much more difficult without him.

But there was no time to reminisce.

"It's coming," Johnny gasped into the concrete. "Oh god, It's coming."

* * *

I wrote all but the first paragraph or so of this in one horrible night. It was scary. I don't remember much from writing this besides being on the verge of exhaustion-induced tears. Oh, and at some point, I had this DIRE NEED to make Johnny scream "THE CAKE IS A LIE" to Meat.

Hmm.

Psst, all that ambiguity up there? You know, like Devi's bitterness thing and whatever Meat showed Nny and all that? DON'T ASK. I DON'T KNOW.

NO REALLY, I DON'T.

Because the cake is a lie.

P.S. Incothe wanted me to call this chapter "Magical Happy Bunny Land." Alas, I went with something with a bit more angst to it.


	18. Pause

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** tasty cheez, ReoccuringComatose, smilefortyeight, ZazuAndHyenaFan, ShiiLovesHim, Writers-Critique, ShovelDuct

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Eighteen: Pause**

* * *

Running.

An endless pumping of arms and legs, pushing and pushing and pushing past the brink and still he kept on. His wounds, real or imagined, healed or bleeding, were ignored. If he stopped he didn't know what would happen, but he wasn't going to let a few broken ribs and a severing spinal cord stop him from getting to the surface. Somehow he knew; once he got outside, the Wall couldn't touch him. It wasn't that strong yet. It had never gotten that strong. If he escaped there was the possibility of saving Squee. If he were caught, well...

He didn't want to think about that at the moment.

Behind, real or imagined, he heard three sets of pounding feet, three sets of gasping lungs. Devi closest, than Jimmy, and then Edgar trailing behind. But what did their order matter now? They all lived in his head. They only ran with him at all because he willed it so. He didn't want to be alone in this desperate race for survival.

"Nny, _wait!_"

Edgar again. Kept trying to make him slow down, to explain just what the fuck was going on. But there was no _time._ Couldn't he understand that? Devi could sense it and Jimmy didn't care; he'd follow him to the end of the world. But Edgar just always had to _ask questions._ Him and his goddamn logic. Didn't he know by now? Logic had no place before the Wall. No place at all. But the scraping of bone upon bone upon nerve endings was practically unbearable. If he didn't stop at least for a few minutes to let the System's healing occur

_Will it even work anymore?_

_I don't know, Nny._

—than he wouldn't make it at all.

He slowed, stopped abruptly, and his figments stuttered through him with short cries of alarm. Gasped, tasting musty air, his breath tearing sharp and ragged, glass and sandpaper against thin, eroding tissues. Choked once, twice, and then managed to calm down enough to prevent a third time. He sat on a stray box marked NAILS—long empty, though for what purposes he couldn't be sure—and held his head in his red hands.

"Nny, what happened? What did Meat say?" Edgar, so persistent. Just had to know the ins and outs of everything. He just didn't know when to stop, but that's why he liked Edgar. Johnny never understood logic. He was nothing but instinct, flailing emotions and crazy.

Edgar asked a second time, and Johnny felt compelled to answer with something.

"I... I'm out." He said, keeping his eyes cast downward. The blood in the veins of his stick-like legs throbbed in time with the rapid beating of his heart, distracting, fascinating, completely real.

"What?" Devi. In the corner of his vision, leaning in a doorway with her arms crossed. Eyes bright and gleaming in the darkness, like a cat's, full of caution and dispute and begrudging... something. He didn't know what to call whatever it was that compelled Devi into staying with him, figment or no. She stayed, and that's all he knew.

"I'm free. I'm not a flusher anymore."

"But that's great news!" Jimmy, always the optimist. Had copied Johnny, sitting on another nearby box. A silly boy full of nervous, eager energy, always trying to please and be pleased. He was no good at reading the subtleties of the many tones to Johnny's voice.

"And just how does _that_ one work, Johnny-poo?" asked Devi in a mixture of sarcasm and honest curiosity.

Edgar answered for him when it became clear Johnny couldn't. "Squee's taking your place... isn't he?"

Finally he looked at them, and his eyes said enough.

"_Shit,_" Devi swore, soft yet violent. It was amazing how much emotion she could place behind a single expletive. He could really learn a thing or two from her.

Jimmy glanced around the room, wringing his hands because there was nothing else to wrap his fingers around. His heels bounced, making his whole body quiver with badly suppressed excitement. "Okay, that sucks. That sucks a _lot._ But you're free, Johnny. You can figure it out. You'll be able to pull him out, eventually. No one knows the System like you do."

"That's just it, Jimmy." Johnny's voice was exhausted, but he struggled to be patient. Each figment spoke what some part of himself was thinking, and so each had to be addressed completely. He'd done the sane thing here and there way back when, or tried anyway, and had long since decided that having someone respond when you talked to the air was far more useful than your own desperate echoes.

"...What?"

Oh, he was going somewhere with that. Right.

"No one knows It like me, and _I_ know the truth—or the closest It ever let me." A pause, dropping his gaze to his palms, to the crumbly redness, Squee. He clenched his fists, his jaw tight. "_There is no escaping._ Just brief respites between plummeting falls into deeper pits. I haven't got a chance at helping him." Some attempt at laughter, failing pitifully. "How could I, when I've never been able to help myself?"

"You got out once before, Nny," Edgar said quietly, standing to Johnny's left, calm and still, a gray and brown palate of quiet.

This time Johnny managed a bray of painful laughter. "And I went _back._ Meat was right—I'm... _addicted._" It hurt to say that, but it was nothing in comparison to the hard truth Meat spoke of. "By the time I figure out how to free Squee—and that's if I ever do at all—he'll be addicted too. That's how the System works. That's how It's _always_ worked."

"He's just fucking with your head again," said Devi. "You always let those freaks in and let them walk all over you. When are you gonna break him like you did with those pastry things?"

"He's too strong. You _know_ that." He made a halfhearted gesture to stop them all from saying anything else. "Look, I screwed up. I lost control, and now Squee is going to pay the price for my mistakes. I'll figure something out; if there really is no hope of freeing him, than I'll just do my best to lessen It for him. But if I stay in here for too long I won't be able to do anything. I'll—" He stopped, unable to repeat what he had seen, the fog already spilling in and hiding it, leaving only the stark terror behind.

It was really annoying, being terrified of something and not having a clue what that something was.

"You'll what?" Didn't know who asked. It didn't matter, not really.

"...I don't know." Covered his mouth with his hands to stop whatever wanted out before it could escape. His throat bulged, muscles straining hard against him, but at last he won. Didn't know what that was about, so he moved on before it could happen again. "Let's go."

"Are you sure?" Jimmy asked. "The floor stopped shaking. You should sit for—"

"Shut up."

Jimmy gave him a wounded puppy sort of look, but complied. It wasn't as if he had a choice in the end.

Johnny got to his feet, testing his ribs with inquisitive fingers before stalking past Edgar towards the next flight of stairs. "Which part of the basement are we in?" he asked, knowing one of them would surely supply the answer.

"We're not too far from the surface," Jimmy supplied after a tense moment completely ignored by Johnny.

"Good enough," he said, looking back the way they... _he_... had come. No vibrations, no pain, no—no guilt. No shame, no self-loathing. That was in it of itself disconcerting. Just a few levels past he'd been rendered nearly paralyzed by It's presence, hadn't he? But now, minutes after Meat's revelation, there was nothing. _Nothing._ Not even a shiver.

It was almost as if the Wall had never existed at all.

Maybe... —no. There wasn't any time to theorize. It was still dangerous, something was coming after him and there just wasn't _time._

"Let's go," he said a second time, more to himself than his figments.

They... _he_... made it to the first level of the basement before the Wall attacked.

He was so close. So close. Like with all good things, he wrapped his fingers around freedom only to have it wrenched away from him in an instant.

He should have known not to get his hopes up.

They all should have known.

It was just so hard not to try.

* * *

This chapter frustrates me even though I like it. Nothing really HAPPENS. It feels like a damn filler, and it's not supposed to be. It's important, actually, but it's all subtle and shit and argh.

Never mind.


	19. Cockroach

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** mam-o-san, NovaWolf, Incothe, ShovelDuct, ZazuAndHyenaFan, Rainbow-man, smilefortyeight, Jhonenz-gurl101

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Nineteen: Cockroach**

* * *

__Behind him Edgar, Devi, and Jimmy talked in soft voices, the words passing with an easy, comfortable grace he could never physically muster with any real meaning. They excluded him completely, and he accepted it with ease. It made him happy for his figments, knowing there were times he didn't need them at his beck and call, that they didn't need to be his all the time. He enslaved their memories in the same fashion the System enslaved him. He knew it, they knew it, no one liked it, but there was no alternative. It was as necessary as breathing. Without them, life would be like trying to function without a pair of lungs. He tuned them out, giving them what privacy he could, and paid attention to the basement's crazed topography instead.  
_**  
**_Following in the footsteps of, or perhaps because of the Wall's control, the basement was never quite the same each time he passed through it. There were doorways, some with doors but most without, that branched off in every direction. Some continued the upward climb, others fell back into the depths, and some led to single-story labyrinths with who knew what kind of fickle imaginings lurking in the frameworks. Still others led to apparently nothing at all. You didn't realize the emptiness through the uniform darkness until your center of gravity was already teetering lethally downward. It took concentration and focus to remember what door had a tendency to lead where, and idle chatter made the task no easier.

He muttered a great deal to himself, gesticulated almost as much, and generally made very little progress. Everything felt... funny. Like the basement couldn't decide on it's blueprints and kept shuffling through them at high speed. For the briefest instant he thought he caught a glimpse of the top level, but when he stepped through the doorway he ended up in a closet that smelled strongly of formaldehyde. He exited it and ended up what he estimated to be three levels lower than they'd been moments before.__

__Edgar's opinion on the basement's even more curious behavior was that it might have something to do with Johnny's newfound freedom.

"How do you suggest we get out then?" Johnny demanded.__

__"What's behind door number three?" Jimmy asked in a fair imitation of a game show host. Devi and Edgar laughed and asked him how the hell he managed that one. Johnny scowled, but gave it a go anyway. It wasn't like he had any ideas.

Some vague amount of time continued to pass. The basement kept fluctuating, scarcely giving Johnny time to walk across a single room before flipping inside out. He kept moving forward, staggering painfully whenever the room he was in became another. No matter what direction he went, how far he knew he traveled, he went no where.__

__"_Fuck,_" he growled low in his throat, gnawing on the knuckles of one locked fist. His eyes roved back and forth wildly, catching on glimpses seen and gone in an instant, digging hard into his eyes. "_Fuck,_" he said again, because there wasn't much else to say. __

__He was used to the basement's many inconsistencies as being an integral eccentricity in its internal clockwork, just as he was—__

___had been___

__—an integral eccentricity in the many cogs that kept the System ticking. He had known the basement intimately, and it had greeted him with a quiet, mad sort of sentience. Much like a rabid dog too old and gone to be much of a danger unless you really tried to anger it. He had given it a purpose after long years of abandonment, and in return it had supplied him with everything he needed to fulfill his role as—his lip curled slightly—the patient zero of the wastelock condition.From the vast death machines down to the clothes he wore and the food he ate, it had provided the means to get the basic necessities. It didn't have the correct programming to give him his idealized contentment, nor to fix what was inherently wrong with his own gears, but it could give him short bursts of true happiness and a place to hide when the outside world became too much, too real, and what more could a man ask of his house?__

__Well, a way _out_ would be a nice bonus, come to think of it.__

__He tried a few more stairs, a few more knobs, all the while pondering. If he couldn't feel the vibrations, he should be fine, could spare a few minutes to untangle this newest mess of questions.

So. __

__The basement was incomprehensible to him now because he was no longer acceptable to it's programming. Simple enough. But one would think, if the basement followed the pattern of most mad things he'd come across in his life, that it would try to expel him from its insides as quickly as possible, not pin him in. Well, maybe it was trying. But it seemed to function like a chicken with it's head cut off without a flusher at the reins. It knew _what _it was supposed to do, It just didn't know _how _anymore. It couldn't have Johnny anymore, but it still needed a flusher _like _Johnny.__

__It needed Squee_**.**_

__"Jimmy, you guess where we should try next. I've got a headache," he said, trying to sound lighthearted because he was quite honestly tired of being so damn unhappy and he knew his figments were sick of his angst altogether. He was met with silence. A quick survey proved that he was completely alone.

"I—"__

__He wasn't sure what to do. There hadn't been a single warning, not even a little goodbye or a hastily scrawled note. Maybe... maybe they had gotten caught up in all the switching. They couldn't be all that far away, right?__

__In mid-step the walls around him shuddered violently and changed. There was a flash of something huge and red and quivering before he tripped on an empty paint can that hadn't been there half a second ago, crashing to the floor in a fit of startled cursing. The landing wouldn't have been nearly so bad if the floorboards hadn't been replaced with a three-foot-deep mish mash of paint cans, buckets, splintered brushes, a variety of rusted tools, large hunks of broken machinery, rollers, a few curious odds and ends, and what appeared to be the scattered remains of at least four people. It had all the chilling appearance of a children's ball pit straight out of a nightmare.

The Wall didn't do much to lighten the mood_**.**_

__"_Ow,_ damn it." He thrashed around a bit until he found a relatively harmless space to surface and did so, shoving a partially decomposed leg out of his way._**  
**_Well, at least he knew where he was now.

"Eewgh, Nny. Does the saying 'You look like death warmed over' mean anything to you?" A woman with short hair and an affinity for black clothing fizzled into existence, knee-deep in a pile of bloodstained duck cloth. She folded her arms over her chest and frowned at him from behind oval glasses. "The last time I saw you, you looked a bit more... _alive_ and shit."__

__Johnny returned her glare with tired, irritated eyes. Not another one. Christ. "And you are?"

"What, you don't recognize me?" Her face seemed frozen in a permanent scowl. Clearly, when she had still been of the living they had not gotten along. Then again, Johnny could count on practically one finger the number of people he had had a reciprocal friendship with, and he was sure she didn't bring that number to two. "Here's a hint," she said. "My fucking name is Tess."__

__Ah, that was it. He stared, absently picking Mr. Samsa out of his hair and crushing him between two fingers for the umpteenth time. "Didn't you..." he began, hesitant.__

__"Me what?"

"You know, _not _suffer a gruesome end by my hands? You seemed like someone I'd _remember_ killing."__

__She waded over to him. "And when did we decide your brain was a reliable source?" she replied almost nastily, thrusting out her hand.__

__He frowned at it, not sure what to do. "So... I did?" he asked.

Tess flapped her fingers in his face until he grabbed her wrist just to make her stop, then realized she was offering him a hand up and let himself be pulled to his feet. "No," she said, "I was one of your _lucky_ ones. I went insane after I got reset and killed myself before I turned thirty, after—"A curious expression on her face as she wiped her palm off on her dress. She changed the subject abruptly. "'Course, you never saw me again so I'm stuck looking like I did when you Tazered me for the rest of this nightmare. God, I had terrible taste, didn't I?" Tess gave him a once-over. "Though, you're not exactly the best person to ask about fashion, are you?"__

__"...No. No, I'm not."__

__She played with the ankh hanging from a string around her neck, never taking her bespectacled eyes from him. Unlike Edgar, he could see her eyes quite plainly, and the hatred inside them was unmistakable. "So, how do you usually kill yourself? You don't drag it out, do you? I sure as hell don't want to be here any longer than I have to."__

__He stared again. "Wait, _wait,_" he said, gesturing widely with his hands. "This is _it?_ This is all I get? The grand finale, and I get _you?_"__

__"You make it sound like I'm a bad thing. At least be happy I'm not Krik."__

___"Who?"___

__"Never mind."__

__He struggled to stay on track. "But—no questions answered, no epic battle for Squee's soul on some distant plain in a far-off dimension, no 'I was a slave to the System for x-amount of time and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' sort of thing? Just... you?" He felt himself relax and didn't bother questioning it for once. "You know, for being such a revolutionary guinea pig, I'm feeling a little undervalued."

Her laugh was short and hollow. "You want answers?"__

__"Answers would be a nice change of pace, yes." He wondered what was going to happen, how the System would finish him. How did one kill a cockroach and keep it dead? He knew, even if he couldn't remember the instances themselves, that he had died many times before this. Flashes of agony, something small and white-hot ripping a smooth tunnel through his skull. Collapsing in a pool of smeared blood and waiting hours for death only to have the universe reset itself. A blink of the eye, and the numbing pain would be gone, the blood long since dried, his head repaired, everything the same. Sometimes his hair had fallen out; other times it hadn't. Either way, nothing changed.

He would still be alive, and he would still be enslaved.__

__Tess gestured at him, tight, sharp movements of her fingers to emphasize her hate of the filthy insect before her. "You think I know any more than you do? Fuck, I was in Heaven this morning blissing away eternity and the next thing I know I get a Post-It note slapped on my forehead telling me I was scheduled for a corporeal haunting." She kicked and stomped, excavating for a patch of wooden floor. "You don't get a say in that kind of thing. You don't even get to know who it is until you're down here again. I don't know what the hell this 'system' is that Meat thing was chatting about earlier but it must be pretty fucking influential. The Saved don't usually make earthbound trips. We just sit around in chairs, perfectly content." She sighed, clearly missing eternal salvation.__

__"I know."

"As if _you've _been to Heaven." She laughed.__

__"Briefly. A few times. The bunny-angel things are kind of creepy."

"Oh." She stopped. "You're serious."__

__"I make it a personal policy to lie as little as possible whenever I can." Johnny cast a cautious glance in the Wall's direction, and saw a slick, maroon hide breathing slowly, in and out, without a care in the world. He envied It so much sometimes.

"So you don't know anything?"__

__"Less than you, if that's even possible."

"It's a stretch, but I think you've managed it."

"Do I get a gold star?" Rolled her eyes but smiled.

He smiled without showing what rotted teeth he had left, and they were silent a while, waiting, waiting for the inevitable end, whatever it was going to be. Johnny slowly came to terms with that in the end, there would never be an escape. His gears were wound too tight—try and do something he wasn't programmed to do and he'd just crumble into dust._**  
**_  
"So how're the others doing?" Tess asked suddenly, or so it seemed to Johnny, who had forgotten she was there.

"Who?"

"Edgar and Devi and Jimmy and whoever else you've got cooped up in that psycho little brain of yours. Where are they? I wanted to talk to them." She looked around, as if expecting Johnny to summon them like magic just for her.

"They got lost in all the mix-ups."

"Oh." She sounded disappointed. "Do you think they'll find us before..."

"I don't know."__

__She frowned and fell silent, clearly struggling with something. She changed the subject again instead. "Do you remember that guy who was with me, when you kidnapped us?"

"No."

She rolled her eyes again, unsurprised. "Well, his name was Dillon. And you know what's weird?"

He leaned his aching back against a half-melted pile of PVC pipes and sheet metal and motioned for her to go on.

"When a person dies and goes to Heaven, there's usually this waiting period before you can sit down. It gives you a chance to look around to, you know, see if you can track down people you knew who died before you did."

"Funny, that's uncharacteristically nice of them."

She shrugged. "Not really. Their filing system is just so godawful slow there's not much else to do."

"Bureaucracy at it's finest. So you went looking for... Dillon?"

"Yeah."

"Did you find him?"

"That's just it," she said, gesturing in a vaguely upwards manner. "He wasn't there."

"Well if I killed him, there's a definitive likelihood he was Hell-bound."__

__Tess looked momentarily awkward, almost begrudging in her embarrassment, though he didn't know why she felt the need to be embarrassed. "...Alright, yeah. He was _supposed_ to be in Hell. But he wasn't there either. He wasn't _anywhere._" She looked at him, as if expecting some kind of reply. He raised his eyebrows marginally, feeling the dried sheen of sweat across his forehead crack, and said nothing.__

__She sighed, frustrated. "I checked out a couple other assholes I knew who'd disappeared or were murdered. A couple of 'em just ditched town, and one guy got killed by some drug dealer—no surprise there. But the other few were just... gone." She stilled her hands, which were gesturing in wide patterns. "It—It was like, after they died, they were... _erased_ or something."

"No."__

__Her eyes jerked toward him, sharp and full of retaliation. He held up a single finger and pointed it at the Wall.

"Try _absorbed."_ He looked at her pointedly. "It ate them. If I gave It their blood, It took everything. It absorbed them."__

__"You—you think so too?" An expression of relief softened the ingrained hate in the lines of her face. He couldn't believe it. It was the first time someone had looked like that because of him in... ever.

"I know so." He tromped a shaky path towards Tess, and she neither recoiled or pushed him away.

"How?" She seemed almost eager, almost desperate. He wondered why, but her answer would change nothing, so he didn't ask.

"It's always been like that. It just..." He searched for a word and came up blank. "...is."

Her face fell. "Oh._**"**_

__He didn't know what to say, how to react. This whole conversation was turning out nothing like he'd expected, once he could remember who she was. In all honesty, he'd half-expected another beating. "Sorry," he tried lamely.__

__"Don't apologize to _me,_ you idiot." The hate, the disgust all returned in a flash that surprised him, left him spinning. "_I _survived. I got away from you. What about that guy next door? _What about Todd?_"__

__"Who?"

She flailed her arms, angry, stunned at his obtuseness. "_Squee! _Who else would I be talking about, for fuck's sake?"__

__"Oh. Why, did something happen to him? Is he okay?" Johnny frowned, worried. It had been a long time since he'd last seen Squee. He'd seemed well enough then, but strange things had a tendency to gravitate towards the boy at an alarming rate. "Maybe I'd better go see how everything is over there..."__

___"Stop."___

__He did, raising his eyebrows mildly.

She stared at him, her face dropping open. "You're not—you can't really—you already _forgot?_"__

__"...Forgot what? What happened?" Shit, it'd happened again, hadn't it. Fuck, it had. _FUCK!_ "Tell me what happened! What happened to Squee?!"__

_**And this is **__**exactly**__** what I meant, Johnny. **_

* * *

So who else caught that reference to :devladyyatexel:'s ISH? Totally accidental, I swear. I didn't realize I'd written it in until I'd started typing it up. It doesn't really fit, but I kept it just to amuse myself. (Johnny actually feels a bit ISH-like here. I must have been alternating between writing this and reading when I was still hacking out the rough draft. Weird. Sorry LYX.)

In other news, I'm currently on Internet hiatus. For more information, please see my journal on deviantART. A link is provided on my bio page.


	20. Crimes

**Beta:** Incothe

**Thanks to:** medusa3139, ZazuAndHyenaFan, teyter, Rainbow-man, ShovelDuct, ShiiLovesHim, Finder77

* * *

**Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Twenty: Crimes**

* * *

Johnny heard Tess inhale, sharp and stricken, but he was more focused on the voice that dug itself deep inside him and paid her no mind. "Let me out of this fucking basement, Meat! I know this is you!"

_**I am merely a voice you have given to your deranged and **__**painfully**__** skewed concepts of the System, my boy. I have no more manifested power here than I do in any other corner of the world.**_

"Oh, _spare _me. As if you haven't had me on a leash since day one." He began to cast his eyes about the room for some sign of Meat's presence. This wasn't in his head anymore. Of that he was sure. Whatever form Meat inhabited now, it lay hidden somewhere in this room.

_**I have always tried to have your best interests at heart.**_

Johnny laughed, sickened. "I wonder what life would have been like if you hadn't cared sodeeply for my well-being."

_**A great deal worse, I can assure you.**_

"Really."

_**Oh yes. For one, you could have been visible to the authorities. Oh—you would have never been caught, but they would have given you one **__**hell**__** of a chase.**_

"I think I might have preferred a little visibility. It would have made it easier to buy groceries, at least."

Meat cackled. _**Your incendiary wit burns as bright as it ever did, dear boy.**_

"Oh, I don't know about that. I've never been much for jokes." He knelt near a pile of rusted machine parts and began to dig, feeling for a hum of sentience inside the jagged shards. "But enough about my pitiable sense of humor. I expected to have succumbed to suicide by now. Yet, I haven't felt quite this..." he paused, uncertain of what word to use. "..._good_... in a long time. It's obvious the Wall expects something more from me, and you must be here to give me my chore. Get on with it."

_**I am not your slave driver, Johnny. Have you ever considered that I too must suffer the yoke of oppression, that the System has also bled my back dry with its merciless lashings when I have failed to please it? We are all cogs in a Machine far too complex for our paltry minds to grasp in the remotest sense. We are all slaves to a higher Purpose.**_

"J-Johnny...?" Tess whispered, an expression of terror draining the blood from her face. He made a swift hushing gesture in her direction, and rose to pace through shallow paths in the refuse, searching, searching.

"Squee thinks the universe was spawned from the mind of a comic book artist," he said, to hopefully distract Meat a little longer.

_**The poor boy has always been too perceptive for his own good. He is right in his assumption. However, that **__**artist**__** has long since abandoned us to the System.**_

"What_ is_ the System? You know, don't you? Or at least have a better grasp of it than I do."

_**It began merely as a vague concept, a show of lazy scripting, as far as I can surmise. Just as we all did. But It grew and evolved far beyond It's humble beginnings as a cheap literary device. Now It is everything. There is no existence without It. We are all subject to Its whims.**_

"And how do you know all this? How can I trust anything you say?"

_**I have discovered what truths I know—for what I speak **__**is**__** the truth—through extensive trial and error. I have managed to penetrate the first levels of subterfuge It works behind due to great sacrifice on my part. I... have given far more than you have in you to get to where I have come. I had hoped that...**_ Meat trailed off, almost wistful, clinging to some vague hope that, inside, he knew was hopeless.

"What?" Johnny asked, eager for information, for anything he could in turn exploit.

_**No, Johnny. Tonight is not about me. This is, as always, your story, your stage. You'll**__** glean**__** no more from me. I am, after all, merely a passing fancy in this world, a voice that only you have been able to hear since my birth in your younger years.**_

"You mean when I was _free?_"

_**Oh, you were **__**never**__** free. The iron shackles had merely been replaced with puppet strings awhile. An experiment on the System's behalf that failed inexorably. It seems you prefer the heavy drag of c**__**hains in your wake. Who would have thought that one such as you would have a psychological bondage fetish?**_

His face twisted in disgust, but he said nothing to deny Meat's accusation. There were more important things to think of. He dug into another pile of discarded parts, organic and mechanical, searching. Where _was_ the little fucker? He sounded so close—

_so close_

—but there seemed to be no sign of him anywhere.

_**I am merely the messenger in this pathetic tale. And my message? To ensure that you remember your crimes.**_

"I remember them just fine, thanks."

_**Do you remember Mr. Vargas' demise?**_

"Which time?" Johnny countered, glancing at Tess to gauge her reaction to this curious turn of events. She had known he was insane, but not the _depth_ of his illnesses. Certainly she hadn't known of his voices. _He'd_ never brought them up. Just the Wall. Yes, he was sure he'd never let _that_ little downer slip. She had one loosely-clasped fist to her mouth and looked as if she couldn't decide whether to scream, cry or throw up.

_**It isn't healthy to get so cocky over such a filthy habit.**_

He cringed, and answered anyway. "That machine in the room with my eye murals. Both times."

_**And your stalker, Jimmy?**_

"The first time I killed Jimmy I pinned open his chest cavity with grappling hooks and crushed it with... a mallet. He came back... five or six times before he finally stayed dead. Though _why_ any of them came back at all is something I never quite figured out..."

Meat named several others, and if Johnny couldn't remember the names he could recognize the descriptions well enough. As they spoke he became gradually frenzied in his search for Meat's hiding place, swinging in shrinking circles around Tess, who had fled to the center of the room when Meat had begun to speak.

_**And what about the child, the one who lives next door? What about little Squee?**_

He stopped short, elbow deep in an old blood barrel. The remaining liquid inside was congealed and slimy, mixing with his own blood that oozed from several cuts, results of his increasing carelessness to _find the bastard. _But... Squee? What could Meat mean? He stood, his eyes focusing on Tess' drawn face. "What are you talking about?" he asked Meat.

_**And we've come full circle. I can't say I'm surprised you've forgotten in so short a time. I'm just saddened by how far you've let yourself go.**_

"That's no fault of mine and you _know_ that."

_**But an hour, a meager sixty minutes, is all you can retain before your memories are lost to the void? There isn't a word to describe how singularly wretched that makes you.**_

"_What?_ Stop avoiding the question and tell me what happened." He glared at Tess, and mouthed with care to make sure she understood him the first time, "-_Can-you-hear-him?-_"

She nodded weakly.

_**It's more of a case of what **__**didn't**__** happen, if you understand me.**_

"_-Where?-_" he mouthed. Aloud, and with a growing frustration, "What did I _do?_ Tell me Squee isn't hurt!"

_**I **__**could**__** say that, but than I'd be lying.**_

Johnny shook the clumps of blood from his arms, his eyes stuttering from the Wall to Tess and back again. His fingers shivered. "Meat. _Please._ Don't do... _this._"

_**Are you **__**begging**__** for my help? My, this is a new and rather pleasant change from your usual loathing towards me.**_

What little patience he had left ran out, overwhelmed by concern, by familial instincts to care, to protect. He threw his dripping hands into the air and screamed, inarticulate, raging. "_I'm done with your fucking games!_"

_**This has **__**never**__** been a game, you fool.**_

"Hasn't it?" A sick, bitter tone. Unmistakable exhaustion. "Just... God, just tell me. Tell me I didn't kill him."

_**You didn't kill him.**_

A relieved smile found its trembling way across his face. "You—you're not lying, are you?"

_**No, it's the truth. The boy still lives.**_

Johnny turned towards Tess, his happy expression exercising muscles he hadn't used in years. "D-did you hear him Tess? I—I didn't kill him! Squee's alive!"

She stared, eyes bulging behind her glasses, and began to edge away from him, towards the door. "..._fuck_..." she whispered, fear leaking freely from her throat. Johnny didn't notice.

"He's okay!" He gasped. "Shit, you had me going there, Meat. Sick bastard. _Fuck_ you know you're supposed to leave Squee out of this. Even when you're doing your little head games. That was part of the agreeme—"

_**That u**__**agreement**__** between you and your Wall has long since expired. That boy has been promoted.**_

The shivering spread up his arms, across his chest. His smile fell apart. "W-what are you..."

_**I look forward to becoming the sole voice in someone's head at last. Your killer's remorse has left your brain rotten with the cries of your victims. Though, even I can agree that what you've committed Squee to is an existence far more hellish than what you or I will ever be able to imagine. I, however, will be witness to it. You will not. I cannot be sure yet which of us is in the better position.**_

He threw a desperate gaze towards the Wall. Its thick skin cast a reddish light across the hills of discarded parts. He swallowed, his face collapsing. "What... I did... _please..._"

_**You **__**raped**__** Squee.**_

Johnny let out a low, tortured groan. Memories began to trickle into his eyes, sensations into his fingers, his mouth, his groin. Lips against lips, twisting tongues, clashing teeth. Nails biting into skin, into muscle, scraping again bone. Fingers gripping with bruising force, pinning another's arms to a table. The sound of a zipper, shifting fabric. Pleas for mercy that went unheard.

Burning heat. Laughter.

Penetration.

Scream.

Thrust.

Scream.

Thrust.

Scream.

Thrust.

Scream.

Thrust.

Scream.

Thrust.

Choke.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

A swath of fire spilling from one body to another.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Johnny groaned a second time, swaying, shivering, shuddering. Helpless, his hips twitched in the memory of rhythm. "O-oh god, _noooo-oo... _Not true—hsst! Nngh... I would nev-_never_—"

_**You have always denied the calls of your flesh, Johnny. And look what it has brought you! Fool. I warned you time and again when there was still a chance of beating this. I tried to help you, and you ignored me. You have **__**always**__** ignored me.**_

A bubble of spit expanded, popped, and dribbled down his chin.

_**You were **__**so**__** eager to know what I once yearned for. Do you still want to know?**_

He was senseless, unable to reply once more, but Meat pressed on undeterred.

_**I had **__**hoped**__** we one day might have come to a truce, and this inane cycle of ours could have come to an end. I had hoped—indeed, I **__**tried**__** countless times to lead you down the better path, the path to doing more than just **__**enduring**__** your life. I could have taught you how to **__**live**__**, Johnny! I could have made this **__**worth**__** it! And yet you always, always **__**fought me!**_

The sensations deepened with an almost cruel ferocity, every nerve burning, ripping open, bleeding sex into his every cell. His head jerked upward, a stream of nonsensical gurgling caught restlessly in his throat, his hands open and limp and thrashing at his sides.

_**And what have you gotten from it? Is this what you wanted?! This momentary freedom in the wake of your foulest deed, only to have it torn away one last time to nourish your **__**beloved**__** Wall? I do not pity you, no m**__**ore. I am**__** done**__** with you and your **__**failures**__**, **__**your teeming **__**regrets**__**, your **__**brokenness**__**. I at last am allowed to cast you aside like the piece of refuse you are, and I have never been happier. Good riddance. **_

"T—aaugh—" He slowly turned his head to look at Tess, his eyes half rolled into the back of his head, his chin soaked in drool. "Teeeee—Eeesssss," he hissed. "H-help—"

_**She won't help you, Johnny. You've scared her out of her pity for you. All she sees now is the monster you have become, and who could love a monster as hideous and evil as you?**_

His limbs flailed mechanically, his muscles locking and unlocking in the slew of memories. "W-wheeEerrree is he-e—eee..."

Tess shook her head, her own body frozen and refusing to respond. She could say nothing. Only stared at him, words failing to describe her fear, her disgust.

"Ple—arghk!—please Teheeeess," he tried again, his face a mass of twitching flesh. "Wh—eaaaaare—nnghgod—_where—_"

She managed to move one trembling hand from her face, and pointed a single finger at him. Somehow he saw it. His hands convulsed, broke free of whatever invisible restraints kept them at his side, and thrashed upwards. He lost his balance and fell back, hit the ground hard, still twitching and lolling under Meat's grasp.

"Ackgt!" He half-screamed, half-moaned. "Wh-haaa-haat?"

_**You haven't realized yet? Oh, you fool. You poor, broken fool.**_

Johnny's eyes spun in their sockets, fingers dragging across his chest, catching in his ribs beneath the fabric.

_**Get away, little girl**_ Johnny's mouth said. _**You won't find what happens next very pretty. You can't help him. This is **__**inevitable**__**. This is **__**business.**_

Tess stumbled backwards until her back thudded against the door. "I—fuck... _I can't do this!_"

_**You were never expected to. Even a flusher is allowed his last wishes. He got his last meal, and I am his last rites.**_ Johnny's mouth twitched in a mockery of a smile, and Meat's voice continued to pour out. _**And you? You are the only one who ever forgave this monster of his crimes. You saw his Wall, you saw his madness, and you didn't try to forget or justify any of this away. You saw Johnny for the victim he is, and forgave him. That is all Johnny has ever wanted. **_

"What—what's going to happen?" She felt compelled to ask, to know what the end of the man who ruined her life would be like.

_**His fate is not unique. All flushers must pass into their creations, and so too must Johnny. That Wall... well, let us call it his greatest portrait. And the Beast behind it? You have seen it, yes? The only one who ever saw a flusher's soul and lived, Tess. A wonderful nightmare, isn't it?**_

"My God..."

_**You've figured it out. What a smart girl. A shame Johnny's madness is so catching. You could have made something of yourself, I think.**_

Her hand fumbled for the knob. Out. Out. Out. She wanted out, away from this display, this nightmare. She couldn't fly out, as she had flown in. Something stopped her, made her too real. Why wouldn't the fucking door _open?_

_**I will tell Johnny that you forgave him. It will make eternity a little less torturous, to know that somewhere someone doesn't loathe him for being alive. Goodbye, Tess. **_

The door popped open, and she fled without looking back.

* * *

Delayed due to beta adapting to new rl situations. She did a fantastic job despite them.

...

-totters off to work-


	21. Alive

**

* * *

Aegri Somnia: A Sick Man's Dreams: Chapter Twenty-One: Attention

* * *

**

Water dripped down somewhere nearby. Plick plick plick, hitting the concrete so loud in the silences between words. Metallic water, cold water, real water plick splash. A puddle formed more quickly than it should have in such a square little room, and he kept thinking he'd move too far to the left and stick his hand in it and not feel anything.

"Devi, you need to calm down."

Stuck.

"Fuck off!"

They were stuck.

"The door will come back eventually."

In a room.

"After it's too late!"

Without any doors.

"Devi—"

Or ventilation.

"_Edgar,_ don't you get it? This is it! This is the fucking _end._ Nny is going to _die_ and he's gonna _stay_ dead! He's all alone and we're stuck in a fucking hole in the ground when we should be with him and—and this isn't _right,_ goddamn it!"

Or lights.

"_I know_. I know. Don't think I'm blind to that, to this. But there's no way you're going to get to him now. You could beat at the wall for as long as you like and you wouldn't even scratch the mold."

Except for all these boxes.

"Nnngh fuck."

Filled with tangled ropes.

"Whoa!"

Of Christmas lights.

"Why did you remind me?"

That probably didn't work.

"Because—because we still have to be rational in this."

And now was probably a bad time.

"Let go."

But he really didn't do well.

"You fell on _me_."

In the dark.

"G-guys?"

A sigh. So easy to picture Edgar gently push Devi from his arms and adjust his glasses, and prepare for the next onslaught of "oh-god-that-really-just-happened-didn't-it" panic to strike at their little group. Wait for it, wait for it.

_Clack._ There, the sound of metal rims squeaking on their hinges, a million years past warranty.

Fuck, how long had it been since his lungs last worked?

"Did you find an outlet Jimmy?"

If he had still been alive, he probably would have suffocated to death years ago.

"No."

Or killed himself.

"Hey. Your voice is shaking. Where are you?"

Or been eaten by the Wall.

"H-here. Over here."

Which was really the same thing, when you thought about it.

Soft-soled footsteps moving in Jimmy's direction. Close closer closest and Edgar's square-fingered hand reached out and found his chest where at least once Johnny had ripped him open with hooks as big as his fist and smashed his ribcage in with a mallet. Now there was nothing, not even his shirt was torn, and Jimmy was okay with this.

As if he had a choice in being okay about Johnny or not.

"Hey, you're shivering."

He could scarcely remember these things anymore, and he had died more times than anybody in the room. Maybe these things were connected. Then again, maybe he just didn't pay enough attention.

"I am?"

Somewhere footsteps thundered past and Edgar's hand moved to his shoulder and squeezed.

"Shit, the dark."

Devi got it. Devi remembered.

"What—? Oh."

Edgar couldn't. He had more important things to worry about than Twitching Jimmy's lapses in coherency, real or fabricated for the attention. Jimmy knew that, but even he wasn't quite sure of the difference anymore. He'd stopped paying attention ages ago.

Jimmy knew Edgar had to keep Nny on the proverbial wagon for as long as he could. Every time Nny killed himself, the whole universe broke and it was so much harder than just restarting a computer. Easier to have Nny hate Edgar than to fall into the abyss outside the front door. Easier to be the emotional punching bag when things went wrong. Easier to convince Nny that killing people was better for everyone in the long run, because even though the first few months after offing himself were fine and dandy, reality always dropped a bomb on Nny and proved how much worse the whole ordeal had made him.

People weren't meant to come back from the dead.

People weren't meant to flush so much human negativity.

People weren't meant to flush for so _long._

People weren't meant to kill other people.

That's why Nny wasn't people anymore.

And that's why Edgar had to work so hard for as long as he could, and Edgar had been lucky often. Without Edgar, Nny would have collapsed a long, long time ago and the world would probably have been the worse for it. They all knew it. Jimmy—Devi too, no doubt—sometimes really hated Edgar. But glimpses of the alternative were seen whenever Nny succeeded in offing himself, and it was clear to all of them that this was the lesser of two evils.

"Jimmy."

Edgar had been lucky, yes. In that, they agreed. His luck had run out though, and now everything was falling apart and could not be repaired.

This was their last night in the basement. Jimmy could feel it. He knew. Here, they were trapped in the dark as far away from Nny as the basement could manage, and because he was dead, Jimmy couldn't tell if it was just the dark crawling all over him or if, maybe, bugs were involved.

Crazy people always thought they had bugs on them, right?

Was this being crazy or was he just begging for attention again?

"Hey, come on."

Dead people couldn't go crazy. If you were sane when you were alive, you were sane when you woke up and found yourself a ghost. Crazy ghosts taking revenge on the living was the shit horror movies were made of. Real ghosts couldn't bother a person. You couldn't touch couldn't hear couldn't see something that wasn't there, and ghosts weren't there in cold columns of air or funny splotches of light on a photograph. Ghosts just stood around all day and wondered what the fucking point was.

"Stop that Jimmy."

There was no unfinished business. A ghost was just a misfile, a hiccup in the grand scheme of things, whatever_ that_ was. End of story. And just as ghosts couldn't affect the world, so the world couldn't affect ghosts.

Jimmy started to feel better.

"Jimmy?" Edgar asked. It was clear from the tone of his voice that that wasn't the first time he'd said his name.

He shoved Edgar's hand away. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Devi's fingers groped blindly against his arm and went through a box behind him. "Fucking dammit."

"Footsteps. There were footsteps."

"Where? I didn't hear anything."

"You guys were fighting."

Neither of them said anything. They listened instead, giving Jimmy his time on the soapbox.

There was nothing now beyond the usual creaking and groaning.

"Are you sure you heard something, Jimmy?" Edgar asked.

He swallowed, and the spit sliding down his throat felt as real and tangible as it had been the day he'd knocked on Nny's front door to prove just how worthy he was of Nny's attention.

_Okay. First lesson._

"I swear! Somebody ran by, really close."

_First lesson._

"There's nobody here but Johnny and an ass-load of dead people."

_Be a better judge of character._

He flinched. "No, I—"

Edgar's hand on his shoulder again and Jimmy fought the urge to punch him. Fuck, would he stop with all the touching? "If you need a minute or two it's okay. Devi and I can manage."

He clenched his fists and bared his teeth, but he wouldn't fight Edgar over this. Either he had heard someone or he hadn't, and the basement would prove it eventually either way. He forced himself to relax. "Fine," he muttered, shrugging Edgar off. He settled in a wedge of knocked-over boxes, the tiny glass bulbs and twisted green wires unharmed by the heavy tread of his boots. "I'm fine, just leave me alone."

Someone walked away. Someone stayed a moment longer. He felt eyes on his neck, his jaw. He curled himself tighter and scowled. If he was still alive, he'd probably be blushing or some shit like that. He couldn't tell which of them was standing there, and told himself he didn't care.

The second someone followed the first, and Devi and Edgar's voices floated over from the opposite side of the room. They sounded so normal, like a couple of survivors trying to make it through a shitty turn of events, like an earthquake or something. If he pretended hard enough, the two of them could almost pass for living to his ears.

_Tmp tmp tmp tmp_

"What was that?"

Jimmy was already on his feet, clinging to a stack of moldy cardboard boxes, unable to feel the dampness, unable to tear the material under his white-knuckled grip. "I told you, somebody's here!"

"Who would want to come _here?_"

He didn't reply. What could he say? Devi's disbelieving tone wasn't unfounded. No one had lived on Nny's street in years. Even the teenagers who once upon a time used to break in on dares had long since grown up. They'd had children of their own, become grandparents, and some no doubt lived long enough to see themselves become great-grandparents before dying of shock after looking in the mirror one day and not recognizing the wrinkled old thing staring back.

Jimmy shook his head. If there had been a brain inside, no doubt it would be aching now. His thoughts kept rushing at him, incoherent and simple one moment, long and rambling and curiously disjointed the next. It was like being alive again.

He hadn't felt like this in forever.

Running footsteps again. A crash, the groaning and thundering sounds of some ancient machine collapsing, a woman's scream. A moment of silence, the three of them unsure of the events happening out of sight, and then slowly the footsteps picked up speed again and faded out of hearing.

Devi made a stunned sort of noise. "Someone's really here."

"N-no shit." Jimmy bit his tongue.

She didn't retaliate, which was a surprise to all of them. "We need to get them out of here," she said.

"Good luck with that," Edgar replied. The tone of his voice made Jimmy wonder if Edgar was smiling.

"Fuck you. We have to try."

"What do you think our chances are of breaking through to them? About as likely as turning on the lights, don't you think?"

"_Edgar—!"_

Whatever Devi was going to scream at Edgar next was cut off by a sudden, thunderous shaking that gripped the basement. Boxes teetered and crashed, spilling their contents across the concrete. Distantly, Jimmy felt the tower of boxes he'd been clinging to fall through him. He hit the floor hard. No doubt it would have hurt if he had nerves beneath his skin, or even if he had skin at all. He couldn't help but gasp as wood and cardboard and wires punctured the places where internal organs once had rested.

The shaking stopped as suddenly as it began.

Someone somewhere groaned, cursed. Jimmy didn't recognize the voice and felt the first prickle of an unexplainable fear. The intruder, the living woman was among them. Swallowing, he closed his eyes and lay very still. Irrational, but instinctual, and he knew better than to fuck with instincts. You didn't ignore your instincts, and Jimmy's skin was crawling with imaginary bugs. He thought maybe he'd ended up in that puddle of water. His ear felt drippy, but he was probably just overreacting. Better to wait and see. Better to—

"Who's there?"

The new someone sounded just shy of a breakdown, her voice thick with emotion, or perhaps she had already fallen apart and was now trying to put herself back together. It didn't matter. She wasn't going to live long anyway. If Johnny couldn't kill her, the basement would get her in the end.

The woman called out again, her voice partially drowned out by the sounds she made digging her way through the piles of Christmas lights.

Devi swore on Jimmy's left.

The sound of shifting wires and tiny glass bulbs tinkling against themselves increased. Ragged breathing came from the mysterious woman. She was frightened. Well, at least she wasn't stupid then. "Oh God," the woman moaned, "oh God, oh God oh God please let me back let me out this is too much I can't do this oh God help me this I shouldn't even be here please—"

"Tess?"

The woman's breath hitched. A coincidence. It had to be. No way could she hear Edgar. Jimmy wondered why he had even bothered. He was always the one to point out how futile it all was, a smile always on his stupid face. Jimmy sneered, his face full of cardboard.

"H-hello?" the woman managed after a moment.

"Tess," Edgar said a second time, sounding certain.

"How do you k-know my name?" This woman, Tess apparently, asked, voicing Jimmy's own thoughts. "Oh fuck, you're another one of his voice-things, aren't you?"

"I… yes."

"No no no he can't have followed me I left him there on the floor screaming. No. I don't believe you this can't be happening."

"Johnny's not here, Tess. It's just us."

"Us? Who's us?"

"Edgar, explain whatever is happening right now or so help me," Devi growled, leaving the empty threat hanging. Tess screamed.

"Tess, it's okay!"

"No no no no OH GOD DON'T TOUCH ME!"

The sounds of a struggle, grunting from Edgar, incoherency from Tess. How the hell was Edgar doing that? How was he grabbing her?

Unless.

Jimmy stood up. At the same time, Edgar seemed to have gotten a strong enough hold on Tess to still her. "Edgar?" Jimmy asked weakly, eyes searching blindly through the dark. His not-skin crawled, and the pressure on his not-eyes made them feel as if they were close to bursting. His not-hands shook. "What…?"

"Meet Tess, guys," Edgar panted. "She's an old friend."

* * *

Apologies for the year of silence. Too many excuses to bother throwing down, so I just won't. The next chapter is roughly planned out to be Tess-centric. No guarantee on when you'll see it. Thanks for your patience and reading! Comments appreciated, critiques even more so.

-A.N.


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